I  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY,  | 
Princeton,  N.  J.  S_ 

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PRINCETON,  N.  J. 


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PRESENTED   BY 


THE  PRESBYTERIAN   BOARD  OF   PUBLICATION 


T\L. 


_ 


ii 


T  Jl  E     RIBBON     RUO  M.  Pilffe   102. 


PLAIX  THOUGHTS 


ABOUT 


GREAT  AND  GOOD  THINGS 


FOR 


LITTLE  BOYS  AXD  GIRLS; 


BY    THE 


Rev.  WILLIAM  S.  PLLMER.  D.  D. 


PHILADELPHIA  : 
PRESBYTERIAN   BOARD    OF    PUBLICATION. 


Entered  according  to  the  Act  of  Congress  in  the  year  1849, 

By  Alexander  W.  Mitchell,  M.  D. 

In  the  office  of  the  Clerk  of  the  District  Court  for  the 
Eastern  District  of  Pennsylvania. 


CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

What  a  Fool  said 9 

The  Matchless  One IT 

How  to  learn  much 25 

Angels  and  Men 33 

Who  rales  the  WTorld? 41 

Time  and  Eternity 49 

God  will  punish  Sin 56 

Some  strange  Things 63 

Something  still  stranger 72 

A  Pain  in  the  Head 79 

A  Chapter  of  Sayings 83 

They  were  both  wrong .96 

The  Ribbon  Room 102 

The  Lost  Pocket-Book 106 

Edwin  and  his  Teacher 109 

Acorns  make  Oaks 119 


TO  MY  LITTLE  FRIENDS. 

I  wish  you  health,  because  without  it 
you  cannot  grow  strong  in  body  or 
mind,  and  so  be  useful  in  the  world.  I 
wish  you  joy,  because  it  makes  me  sad 
to  see  a  child  sad.  I  wish  you  a 
new  heart,  because  your  old  heart  is 
naughty  and  bad.  It  will  plague  you 
as  long  as  it  rules  you.  It  wTill  ruin 
you,  if  you  do  not  get  rid  of  it. 
These  are  my  three  wishes  about  you. 
When  I  was  a  child  I  once  thought 
that  no  one  cared  for  my  soul,  and  I 
wept.  I  was  wrong,  for  many  prayed 
for  me.  You  may  have  the  same 
thoughts.  But  you  are  wrong.  The 
pious  often  pray  for  you.  Some  have 
written  good  books  for  you.  I  hope 
you  read  them.  I  send  you  this  book 
in  the  hope  that  it  will  do  you  good. 


8  ADVERTISEMENT. 

We,  who  are  old,  will  soon  be  dead, 
and  you  must  take  our  places.  I  pray- 
that  you  may  do,  and  get  more  good 
than  we  have.  It  often  makes  us  sad 
to  see  that  we  are  not  wiser  and  better. 
You  must  pray  for  yourselves.  God 
can  bless  you.  He  alone  can  save  you. 
Give  him  your  hearts.  Hate  every 
false  way  and  all  vain  thoughts.  Look 
to  Jesus.  He  is  the  best  friend  anv  of 
us  have.  He  died  for  us.  Love  your 
Bible.  Do  as  it  tells  you;  and  when 
you  die,  you  shall  go  where  good  chil- 
dren, good  men,  good  angels,  and  the 
good  Jesus  dwell.  So  I  bid  you  good- 
bye. 


PLAIN   THOUGHTS. 


WHAT  A  FOOL  SAID. 

David  often  tells  us  what  God  said.  This 
is  always  good.  Now  and  then  he  tells  us 
what  he  himself  said.  This  is  often,  but  not 
always  good.  He  once  said,  "  all  men  are 
liars."  That  is  not  true.  Even  David  ad- 
mits that  he  said  it  "in  haste."  We  ought 
to  think  well  before  we  speak  at  all.  At 
least  once  he  tells  us  what  a  fool  said:  "The 
fool  hath  said  in  his  heart  there  is  no  God." 
None  but  a  fool  would  say  that.  None  can 
tell  what  a  fool  will  say.  It  is  his  trade  to 
think,  and  say,  and  do  things  which  have  no 
truth  nor  sense  in  them.  It  is  always  well 
to  know  ivlio  says  and  does  things.  Thieves 
will  steal ;  rogues  will  cheat ;  liars  will  not 
tell  the  truth.  He  who  brags  will  tell  big 
stories  of  himself;  and  a  fool  will  speak  folly. 
Keep  that  in  mind. 
2 


10  WHAT  A   FOOL   SAID. 

Some  say  that  the  word  "fool,"  in  this 
place,  means  a  bad  man.  I  think  so  too. 
He  who  has  sense  enough  about  other  things, 
and  yet  speaks  of  God  just  like  a  fool,  must 
be  a  bad  man.  Some  men  are  so  bad,  that 
they  talk  and  act  as  if  they  were  stark  mad. 
They  hate  all  good  men  and  good  things. 
They  spread  nets  for  their  own  feet.  ,  They 
dig  pits  and  fall  into  them.  They  love  death. 
They  would  not  be  so  foolish^  if  they  were 
not  so  wicked.  They  do  wrong,  and  then 
they  think  wrong.  The  more  one  sins,  the 
less  able  is  he  to  have  right  thoughts. 

Such  a  man  said,  "there  is  no  God." 
Where  did  he  learn  that?  How  could  he 
know  so  much  ?  If  a  man  has  not  lived  in 
every  age,  how  does  he  know  but  that  at 
some  time  there  was  proof  that  God  is,  and 
proof  that  would  have  shut  his  mouth  ?  If 
he  has  not  been  in  all  places,  the  place  he 
has  not  been  in  may  make  even  fools  say, 
there  is  a  God.  If  he  does  not  know  all 
beings  in  all  worlds,  the  one  whom  he  does 
not  know,  may  be  a  God.  If  he  does  not 
know  all  truth,  the  truth  which  he  does  not 
know,  may  be  that  there  is  a  God.     If  he 


WHAT   A   POOL   SAID.  11 

does  not  know  all  causes,  the  cause  which  he 
does  not  know,  may  be  a  God.  In  short, 
one  must  know  all  things,  must  be  in  all 
places,  must  fill  all  worlds,  must  be  a  God 
himself,  and  thus  shut  out  any  other  God, 
before  he  can  know  that  there  is  no  God. 
No  man  whose  heart  was  not  so  bad  as  to 
make  a  fool  of  him,  would  dare  to  say, 
"  there  is  no  God." 

"Why  should  he  say  so?  What  good  can 
it  do  to  speak  so  much  like  a  fool  ?  No  man 
will  be  made  wise  or  good  by  such  words. 
Men  are  bad  enough  now.  If  all  men 
thought  that  there  was  no  God,  earth  would 
soon  be  as  bad  as  hell.  We  might  sigh,  and 
groan,  and  weep,  and  howl,  but  we  would 
not  pray.  To  whom  should  we  pray?  Now, 
we  can  call  on  God  in  the  day  of  trouble, 
and  he  will  hear  us,  and  send  us  help.  But 
if  all  said  there  was  no  God,  none  would 
pray.  I  would  not  pray,  if  I  did  not  think 
there  was  a  God.  W^ould  you?  You  would 
be  a  fool  if  you  did;  and  what  a  world  of 
woe  this  would  be,  if  there  was  no  prayer 
going  up  to  God ! 

But  there  is  a  God.     Yes,  there  is.     No 


12  WHAT  A  FOOL   SAID. 

man  should  doubt  it.  Even  the  heathen 
know  that;  they  have  very  wrong  ideas  of 
him,  and  take  very  absurd  ways  to  please 
him;  but  they  know  that  he  is.  There  is 
proof  every  where. 

Did  you  see  that  steamboat?  She  ran 
fifteen  miles  in  an  hour.  She  made  the 
water  foam  at  her  bow.  Did  she  make  her- 
self? Does  she  move  herself?  Could  she 
keep  the  channel,  and  turn  the  points  of  the 
bars,  and  run  so  safely,  if  there  were  no  men 
to  make  the  fires,  work  the  engine,  and  steer 
her?  You  say,  No.  Very  well,  then;  if 
that  boat  did  not  make  herself,  did  the  world 
make  itself?  If  she  does  not  move  and  steer 
herself,  how  can  the  world  move  and  guide 
itself? 

Have  you  seen  the  railroad  cars?  How 
fast  they  go !  Some  of  them  run  sixty  miles 
an  hour.  It  almost  makes  one's  hair  stand 
on  end  to  be  near  the  track,  when  they  pass 
at  full  speed.  They  make  a  great  noise. 
Did  you  ever  hear  any  one  say,  that  no  one 
made  the  road,  or  the  cars  ?  If  you  did,  I 
know  you  set  him  down  for  a  fool.  You 
would  not  ride  in  the  cars,  if  you  did  not 


WHAT   A   FOOL   SAID.  13 

know  that  there  was  a  man,  who  knew  what 
he  was  about,  standing  by  the  engine  to 
keep  all  right.  But  all  your  life  you  have 
been  riding  on  n  world,  which  is  more  than 
eight  thousand  miles  through,  and  twenty- 
five  thousand  miles  round.  It  has  been  mov- 
* 

ing  more  than  sixty  thousand  miles  every 
hour  since  it  was  made.  Yet  it  makes  no 
noise,  but  goes  quietly  on.  Can  you  think 
that  this  great  world  can  go  so  fast  and  so 
safely  without  some  one  to  hold  it  up,  and 
guide  it?  It  hangs  upon  nothing.  There 
are  no  rails  laid  down  for  it  to  run  upon,  yet 
it  follows  the  same  track  every  year,  and 
turns  quite  around  every  day.  It  does  not 
stop.  It  does  not  tire.  There  is  no  noise, 
because  there  is  no  jar.  Gould  it  move  so, 
if  there  was  no  God? 

If  a  man  should  say  that  the  book  which 
you  hold  in  your  hand,  was  made  by  chance ; 
that  no  one  wrote  it,  or  printed  it,  or  bound  it, 
would  you  believe  him  ?  No.  How  then  can 
any  one  believe  that  the  heavens  full  of  stars 
made  themselves;  or  that  the  leaves,  and 
birds,  and  beasts,  and  fishes,  and  flies,  and 
flowers,  all  came  by  chance,  and  had  no  maker  ? 
2* 


14  WHAT   A   FOOL   SAID. 

He  cannot  think  so,  unless  he  is  the  kind  of 
man  called  by  David  a  fool.  Every  thing  in 
us,  except  our  wicked  hearts,  and  every  thing 
around  us,  except  fools,  clearly  say  that 
there  is  a  God.  Even  the  fool  is  a  proof  that 
there  is  a  God,  who  made  him,  and  who  is 
good  to  him.  If  God  did  not  make  him,  who 
did  ?  And  if  God  were  not  very  good,  He 
would  strike  him  dead,  and  send  him  to  hell 
at  once  for  saying  such  wicked  words- 
There  are  three  ways  of  saying  that 
" there  is  no  God:" 

1.  Some  say  so  in  words.  There  are  not 
many  such.  But  I  have  seen  two  men,  who 
said  so.  One  of  them  died  in  the  year  1848 
in  great  fear.  I  do  not  wonder  he  was  afraid. 
When  God  leaves  a  man  in  his  sins,  he  will 
say  any  thing,  and  soon  go  to  ruin.  I  never 
saw  a  woman,  who  said  there  was  no  God. 
I  hope  I  never  shall.  I  should  not  like  to 
see  a  female  so  wicked.  If  you  hear  any  one 
say,  "  there  is  no  God,"  get  away  from  him. 
He  is  vile.  Yet  do  not  hate  him,  but  pity 
him,  and  pray  for  him ;  ask  God  to  have 
mercy  on  him.  You  may  be  sure  that  he 
does  not  pray  for  himself. 


WHAT   A   FOOL    SAID.  15 

2.  Some  say  in  their  hearts  that  "  there  is 
no  God."  This  is  the  way  in  which  the  fool 
said  it.  Such  men  teish  there  was  no  God. 
"The  wish  is  father  to  the  thought."  Such 
love  sin,  and  mean  to  live  in  sin.  Yet  they 
fear  that  God  will  punish  them  for  sin ;  then 
they  wish  there  was  "no  God"  to  deal  with 
them.  I  have  seen  many  such,  I  fear.  They 
did  not  speak  out  their  wishes ;  but  they  had 
them.  Vain  wishes!  and  they  know  them 
to  be  vain.  If  they  do  not  know  it  now, 
they  shall  know  it.  God  never  dies;  he 
never  grows  old;  he  lives  for  ever.  They 
may  wish  on,  but  God  will  live  on. 

3.  Others  say  by  their  deeds  that  "there  is 
no  God."  That  is,  they  live  and  act  just  as 
they  would  like  to  do,  if  there  was  "  no  God." 
They  do  not  pray  to  him,  except  when  they 
are  full  of  fears.  I  knew  a  man  to  live  fifty 
years,  and  he  never  asked  a  blessing  at  his 
table,  nor  prayed  with  his  family.  If  such 
do  not  curse  God,  yet  they  do  not  praise 
him.  Like  the  swine  eating  acorns  under 
the  oak  tree,  they  are  busy  with  what  they 
find,  but  never  look  up  to  see  where  it  comes 
from.      They  do  not  serve    God;  but   they 


16  WHAT   A   FOOL    SAID. 

serve  the  world,  the  flesh,  and  the  devil. 
God  is  not  in  all  their  thoughts.  They 
make  all  their  plans  as  if  they  owed  nothing 
to  God.  They  do  not  love  his  word,  even  if 
they  read  it.  They  do  not  love  God.  They 
love  gain,  and  gold,  and  fame,  and  fun,  but 
they  do  not  love  God  at  all.  They  hate  him. 
They  do  not  keep  his  law.  They  do  not 
repent  of  their  sins  against  him.  They  have 
not  as  much  that  looks  like  a  show  of  piety 
as  the  lost  angels  have;  for  "the  devils  be- 
lieve that  there  is  a  God,  and  tremble."  But 
these  men  neither  rejoice,  nor  tremble,  when 
they  think  there  is  a  God.  Or,  if  they  have 
some  fears,  they  soon  act  as  vilely  as  ever. 
There  are  many  such.  The  world  is  full  of 
them.  Many  of  them  know  a  great  deal, 
but  they  do  not  know  God.  They  do  not 
like  to  retain  God  in  their  knowledge.  Many 
of  them  have  farms,  and  houses,  and  money ; 
but  they  are  poor.  They  are  without  hope, 
and  without  God  in  the  world.  Some  of 
them  are  called  great,  and  rise  high;  but 
they  will  soon  sink  to  the  lowest  hell.  Their 
state  is  fearful.  Are  you  one  of  them  ? 
Would  not  you  live  very  much  as  you  do,  if 


THE    MATCHLESS    OXE.  17 

you  thought  that  there  was  no  God?     Do 
you  love  God  ? 


THE  MATCHLESS  ONE. 

!Theiie  never  was  a  gun,  a  ship,  or  a  house 
so  large  that  there  might  not  have  been  others 
as  large?  or  even  larger.  Each  had  its  match, 
or  might  have  had  it  somewhere.  A  man 
may  be  very  strong,  or  wise,  or  good,  yet 
some  one  may  be  found,  who  is  as  much  so. 
But  there  is  none  like  God.  Good  men  are 
sometimes  said  to  be  like  him,  because,  in 
their  measure,  they  love  the  things  which  he 
loves,  and  hate  the  things  which  he  hates. 
A  candle  is  like  the  sun,  thus  far — they  both 
give  light.  A  dew-drop  is  like  the  ocean,  in 
so  far  as  they  are  both  wet.  Wind  from  a 
bellows  is  like  a  tempest ;  both  of  them  are 
air  in  motion.  Yet  no  one  would  gravely 
compare  one  of  these  small  things  with  one 
of  these  great  things,  except  in  the  low  sense 
just  stated.  Neither  can  we  liken  any  one 
to  God.  He  has  no  match,  no  equal.  Let 
us  see. 


18  THE   MATCHLESS   ONE. 

1.  He  is  the  Creator;  all  others  are  crea- 
tures. There  is  no  wider  nor  deeper  gulf 
than  that  which  lies  between  Him  who  made 
all,  and  all  that  was  made.  We  all  live, 
move,  and  have  our  being  in  God.  He  does 
not  depend  on  us.  We  all  depend  on  him. 
We  cannot  live  without  him.  He  lived  mil- 
lions of  ages  before  men  or  angels  were 
made.  His  name  is,  "I  am."  Man's  name 
is,  "worm  of  the  dust."  God's  life  is  like 
himself,  without  change,  and  without  cause. 
He  has  life  in  himself. 

2.  God  can  do  all  things.  He  can  make 
worlds  and  destroy  them  too.  We  can  do 
neither.  He  can  make  something  out  of 
nothing.  We  cannot;  angels  cannot.  He 
can  make  the  earth  reel  and  stagger  like  a 
drunken  man.  We  cannot  move  it.  He 
hangs  the  earth  upon  nothing.  We  cannot 
hang  an  apple  or  a  feather  upon  nothing. 
He  can  change  a  bad  man  into  a  good  man. 
All  men  and  angels  cannot  do  that.  "  Who 
is  a  God  like  unto  thee,  that  pardoneth  in- 
iquity ?"  I  know  the  pope  and  his  priests, 
and  some  priests  among  the  heathen,  say 
they  can  forgive  sins,  but  they  can  do  no 


THE   MATCHLESS    ONE.  19 

such  thing.  "Who  can  forgive  sins  but  God 
only?"  Peter  did  not  pretend  to  forgive 
Simon  Magus,  but  told  him  to  pray  to  God 
for  pardon. 

3.  God  knows  all  things.  No  one  else 
knows  much.  No  man  nor  angel  knows 
when  the  day  of  judgment  will  be.  Jesus 
Christ  said  so.  Yet  God  knows  it,  for  he 
has  set  the  day.  No  man,  nor  angel  knows 
the  mind  of  God  in  any  matter,  but  as  God 
teaches  him.  Yet  God  knows  his  own  mind. 
No  creature  knows  the  human  heart.  But 
God  searches  it  through  and  through.  He 
knows  our  hearts  better  than  we  know  each 
other's  faces.  We  know  what  a  man  has 
said  after  he  has  spoken,  but  God  knows 
what  a  man  will  say  before  he  speaks.  We 
know  things  by  learning  them;  God  knows 
things  without  learning  them.  He  always 
knew  all  things.  We  forget  many  things; 
God  never  forgets  any  thing.  To  him  nothing 
is  new,  nothing  is  old;  to  us  almost  every 
thing  is  new  or  old.  "Known  unto  God  are 
all  his  works  from  the  beginning.' ' 

4.  God  is  good  in  himself.  If  any  one 
else  is  good,  it  is  because  God  has  made  and 


20  THE   MATCHLESS   ONE. 

kept  him  so.  God  is  so  holy  that  the  hea- 
vens are  not  clean  in  his  sight.  No  race  of 
beings  loved  sin,  when  God  made  them.  Yet 
"none  is  good,  save  one,  that  is  God." 
None  pities  and  shows  mercy  like  God.  He 
blesses  like  a  God;  he  blots  out  so  many 
sins  of  so  many  sinners  in  so  free  a  way,  that 
there  is  none  like  him.  He  never  calls  up 
an  old  sin  that  once  has  been  buried.  Peter 
thought  that  he  was  doing  very  well  when  he 
spoke  of  forgiving  his  brother  seven  times; 
and  that  is  more  than  most  men  do.  But 
God  blots  out  sins  that  are  like  a  thick  cloud, 
and  are  more  than  the  hairs  of  our  head. 
"  God  is  love."  If  he  were  not,  we  should 
all  sink  to  hell  without  hope. 

5.  God  is  the  judge  of  all.  Men  and  an- 
gels, good  and  bad,  will  all  be  judged  by  him. 
But  "  he  gives  not  an  account  of  any  of  his 
affairs. "  We  may  not  even  try  to  tell  what 
is  in  a  man's  heart,  except  from  what  he 
says  and  does.  "  Judge  not,  that  ye  be  not 
judged."  "Who  art  thou,  that  judgest  an- 
other man's  servant?  To  his  own  master 
he  standeth  or  falleth."  But  God  is  of  right 
the    "Judge  of  all."     He  will  judge  "the 


THE   MATCHLESS   ONE.  21 

secrets  of  men."  He  ought  to  do  it.  He  is 
the  only  one,  who  is  fit  to  do  it,  or  -who  can 
do  it  right.  I  am  glad  God  is  to  be  the 
judge.  There  will  be  no  mistakes  in  the  day 
of  doom,  for  he  shall  be  on  the  throne. 

6.  God  is  now  and  ever  will  be  the  source 
of  all  joy.  He  can  make  us  happy  in  him- 
self alone.  If  there  were  none  but  God  and 
one  man,  that  man  might  be  full  of  joy  in 
his  Maker.  God  often  makes  men  the  means, 
but  not  the  fountain  of  joy  to  each  other. 
None  can  be  happy,  if  God  leaves  him.  Some 
great  and  good  men  think  that  all  the  pain 
of  the  lost  will  come  to  them  from  God's 
wholly  leaving  them.  This  may  not  be  so. 
But  surely  if  God  goes  away  from  a  man, 
never  to  come  back,  and  never  to  smile  on 
him  again,  he  is  undone.  The  great  bliss  of 
the  holy  ones  in  heaven  is,  and  always  will 
be,  that  God  is  their  portion.  God  can  make 
us  happy ;  but  we  cannot  make  him  happy. 
He  was  as  blessed  before  he  had  made  us,  as 
he  is  now,  or  ever  will  be. 

7.  God  never  changes;  all  his  creatures 
change.  Of  our  bodies,  it  is  well  said,  "we 
all  do  fade  as  a  leaf."     Our  minds  change. 

3 


ZZ  THE   MATCHLESS   ONE. 

Our  plans  change.  Every  thing  around  us 
changes.  Wicked  men  and  devils  grow  worse 
and  worse ;  holy  men  and  angels  are  growing 
more  and  more  wise,  and  holy,  and  happy. 
Their  hearts  are  getting  larger,  and  they  can 
hold  more  bliss.  The  seasons  change  also. 
The  very  rocks  are  growing  harder,  or  crum- 
bling away.  But  God  is  the  Lord.  He 
changes  not.  God  is  far  above  us  in  all 
things.  I  cannot  tell  all  now.  Read  and 
learn.  If  these  things  be  so,  then  it  is  plain 
that, 

1.  We  ought  not  to  think  of  God  as  we  do 
of  any  other ;  for  there  is  none  like  him.  To 
think  that  God  is  like  man,  is  a  great  sin. 
He  says  so.  Don't  you  do  it.  God  is  not 
man  that  he  should  lie,  or  repent,  or  be  un- 
just. God  is  a  pure  spirit,  and  has  no  body. 
The  gods  of  the  heathen  have  eyes,  but  see 
not;  our  God  has  no  eyes,  yet  he  sees  all 
things.  Idols  have  ears,  but  they  hear  not; 
our  God  has  no  ears,  but  he  hears  the  lowest 
whisper.  They  have  hands,  but  they  cannot 
make  or  do  any  thing;  He  has  no  hands,  and 
yet  He  made  and  can  do  all  things.  They 
have  feet,  but  cannot  move;  He  has  no  feet, 


THE   MATCHLESS    Off*.  23 

yet  he  walks  on  the  face  of  the  sea,  and  on 
the  wings  of  the  wind.  It  is  no  sin  to  make 
a  picture  or  statue  of  a  man  to  remind  us  of 
him ;  but  it  is  a  great  sin  to  make  any  image 
or  likeness  of  God.  He  says  so.  See  Exo- 
dus. 20th  chapter  4th  and  oth  verses. 

2.  If  God  is  such  a  being,  then  none 
should  be  loved  and  feared  as  he  should  be. 
We  should  love  him  with  all  our  hearts,  and 
with  all  our  souls,  and  with  all  -our  minds. 
We  must  love  our  neighbours  as  ourselves; 
but  we  must  love  God  more  than  we  love 
ourselves  and  our  neighbours  too.  We  must 
cheerfully  do  what  our  parents,  teachers,  and 
rulers  command  us,  if  it  be  lawful;  but  if 
they  bid  us  do  a  wicked  thing,  we  may  not 
do  it  even  to  save  our  lives.  He  who  thus 
saves  his  life,  shall  lose  it. 

3.  If  God  be  such  a  God,  then  he  can  save 
us  from  sin,  and  guilt,  and  wrath,  and  hell. 
He  can  make  us  joyful  even  in  sorrow ;  He 
can  wash  us  and  cleanse  us  ;  He  can  keep  us 
from  falling ;  He  can  pay  back  to  us  all  we 
give  up  for  him.  Others  may  laugh  at  us 
for  praying,  and  singing  hymns,  and  keeping 
the  Sabbath;  but  such  are  poor  sinful  worms. 


24  THE   MATCHLESS   ONE. 

I  know  a  little  boy  at  school,  who  would  not 
fight,  but  often  read  his  Bible  and  prayed 
alone.  The  other  boys  laughed  at  him,  and 
cried  out,  "  Here  is  a  little  Christian. "  But 
that  did  not  hurt  him.  He  is  now  a  good 
minister  of  Christ,  and  when  he  dies,  Christ 
will  reward  him  for  not  being  led  by  shame 
to  deny  the  Saviour. 

4.  Be  not  much  afraid  of  any  man,  if  you 
act  right.  *  "The  fear  of  man  bringeth  a 
snare.''  All  men  are  mere  worms.  The 
most  they  can  do  is  to  kill  the  body.  But 
God  can  cast  both  soul  and  body  into  hell. 
"Fear  him;  yea,  I  say  unto  you,  fear  him." 
When  John  Knox  died,  a  great  man  made  a 
speech  before  they  put  the  body  in  the  grave. 
The  speech  was  not  long,  but  very  good. 
This  was  the  whole  of  it :  "  There  lies  he 
who  never  feared  the  face  of  man." 

5.  If  false  gods  can  neither  see,  nor  hear, 
nor  save,  we  ought  to  send  the  gospel  to  the 
heathen.  I  hope  you  pray  for  them.  Would 
not  you  like  to  go  and  teach  them  ?  Think 
of  it. 


25 


HOW  TO  LEARN  MUCH. 

You  can  learn  some  things  at  home,  some 
at  school,  and  some  at  church.  If  you  wish 
to  learn  many  things,  you  must  read.  I  wish 
all  boys  and  girls  loved  to  read.  A  good  book 
is  a  good  thing.  It  is  worth  more  than  gold. 
The  best  book  is  the  best  thing  you  ever  did 
see.  It  came  from  God.  Holy  men  wrote 
it  as  they  were  moved  by  the  Holy  Ghost. 
The  Bible  is  worth  all  the  other  books  in  the 
world.  It  is  full  of  truth,  and  has  no  error 
in  it.  It  gives  great  light.  It  shows  the  safe 
path  through  the  world,  and  the  safe  way  out 
of  the  world.  It  tells  of  the  greatest  things, 
and  the  wisest  things,  and  the  sweetest  things. 
It  tells  us  much  about  two  other  worlds  be- 
sides this. 

"Were  you  ever  at  a  school  where  the  deaf 
and  dumb  are  taught  ?  If  you  were,  you  have 
seen  them,  with  their  smiling  faces  and  bright 
eyes,  standing  at  their  black  boards  with 
chalk  in  their  hands,  ready  to  write.  Some 
time. since,  a  man  went  to  such  a  school  and 
saw  a  little  deaf  mute  boy.  He  asked,  "  How 
3* 


26  HOW   TO    LEARN   MUCH. 

come  this  world  to  exist  with  all  that  is  in 
it?"  The  boy  wrote,  "In  the  beginning 
God  made  the  heavens  and  the  earth."  The 
next  question  was,  "Are  all  men  good  and 
holy  ?"  The  boy  wrote,  "  We  have  all  sinned 
and  come  short  of  the  glory  of  God."  The 
man  then  asked,  "  How  comes  it  to  pass  that 
we  all  die?"  The  boy  wrote,  "Death  passed 
upon  all  men,  for  that  all  have  sinned."  The 
next  question  was,  "How  then  can  we  be 
saved?"  The  boy  wrote,  "It  is  a  faithful 
saying  and  worthy  of  all  acceptation,  that 
Christ  Jesus  came  into  the  world  to  save 
sinners,  of  whom  I  am  chief."  The  man 
then  said,  "Most  other  boys  can  hear  and 
speak;  how  came  you  to  be  deaf  and  dumb?" 
The  mute  wrote,  "Even  so,  Father,  for  so  it 
seemed  good  in  thy  sight."  You  say  that 
boy  knew  much,  and  answered  discreetly. 
So  he  did.  But  all  his  answers  are  found  in 
the  Bible.  I  have  read  many  books  written 
by  great  men  in  Greece  and  Borne,  but  I 
never  learned  as  much  from  them  about  the 
creation,  the  fall  of  man,  the  cause  of  death, 
the  way  of  life,  and  the  right  way  to. feel, 
and  to  speak  of  God,  when  he  afflicts  us,  as 


HOW   TO   LEARN   MUCH.  27 

this  little  mute  knew.  There  is  no  book  like 
the  Bible.  It  tells  us  so  plainly  of  the  greatest 
things. 

You  never  saw  as  good  a  story  as  that  of 
Joseph  any  where  but  in  the  Bible.  And  all 
parts  of  God's  word  give  us  the  very  light  we 
need.  A  poor  Hindoo  was  dying.  He  thought 
"where  shall  I  go  after  death?"  He  asked 
his  priest,  who  had  come  to  see  him,  "What 
will  become  of  me?"  The  priest  said,  "0 
you  will  live  in  some  other  body."  "And 
where  shall  I  go  then?"  said  he.  "Into 
another,"  said  the  priest.  "And  where 
then?"  said  the  dying  man.  "Into  an- 
other, and  so  on  through  many,  many 
more,"  said  the  priest.  The  poor  man  looked 
beyond  all  these,  and  said,  "Where  shall  I 
go  last  of  all?"  The  priest  could  say  no 
more,  and  the  poor  man  died  with  none  to 
tell  him.  The  Bible  tells  us,  that  when  a 
man  dies  his  "soul  returns  to  God,  who  gave 
it."  It  answers  such  great  questions  in  the 
best  way.  I  wonder  men  do  not  love  it  more. 
It  is  full  of  truth. 

It  tells  us  better  than  all  other  books  how 
we  should  act.  Many  play  the  fool  just  be- 
cause they  will  not  read  or  heed  what  it  says. 


28  HOW   TO   LEARN   MUCH. 

A  man  spends  half  his  life  in  toil  to  get 
riches,  and  the  other  half  in  care  to  keep 
them.  He  is  afraid  lest  he  should  lose  all 
he  has.  Of  what  use  is  it  to  him  ?  He  can- 
not eat  more  or  sleep  better  than  the  poor 
man.  Nay,  he  cannot  sleep  as  well.  He  is 
afraid  of  thieves.  He  fears  changes.  He 
fears  every  thing;  but  he  does  not  fear  God, 
and  he  loses  his  own  soul.  God  once  spoke 
to  such  a  man  and  said,  "Thou  fool!"  Why 
was  he  a  fool  ?  Because  he  did  not  know  or 
care  what  the  Bible  says:  "Love  not  the 
world,  neither  the  things  that  are  in  the 
world."  "Lay  not  up  for  yourselves  trea- 
sures upon  earth."  "Seek  first  the  kingdom 
of  God." 

The  word  of  God  shows  us  how  we  ought 
to  speak.  The  Bible  says,  "a  fool  will  utter 
all  his  mind."  If  you  see  a  man  telling  all 
he  knows,  you  know  now  what  to  think  of 
Lim..  The  Bible  says,  "Bless  and  curse  not;" 
"Swear  not  at  all;"  "In  many  words  there 
wanteth  not  sin;"  "Keep  thy  tongue  from 
guile,  and  thy  lips  from  speaking  lies."  The 
rules  which  the  Bible  gives  for  ruling  the 
tongue,  are  the  best  in  the  world.  He  who 
knows  and  keeps  them,  must  lead  a  safe  and 


HOW   TO    LEARN   MUCH.  29 

quiet  life.  The  tongue  is  a  wild  beast.  It 
must  be  held  in,  or  it  will  do  much  harm. 
The  word  of  God  shows  how  this  can  best  be 
done.     Read  it. 

The  Bible  also  shows  us  how  we  ought  to 
think  and  feel.  It  goes  to  the  heart.  If  that 
is  right,  all  the  rest  will  soon  be  right.  That 
is  the  best  book  which  teaches  us  the  faults 
of  our  hearts  and  minds,  and  puts  us  right 
there.  "As  a  man  thinketh  in  his  heart,  so 
is  he."  "Keep  thy  heart  with  all  diligence, 
for  out  of  it  are  the  issues  of  life." 

The  Scriptures  are  able  to  make  us  wise 
unto  salvation.  They  show  us  our  sins  and 
our  Saviour  too.  They  make  us  see  our 
guilt  and  the  way  to  flee  from  the  wrath  to 
come.  They  point  to  Christ,  and  say  that 
he  is  "the  way,  the  truth,  and  the  life." 
They  tell  us  how  he  has  saved  many.  They 
make  us  sure  that  he  will  save  others.  They 
say  He  is  willing  to  save  all  that  come  to 
God  by  Him.  They  urge  us  to  come  to 
Christ.  We  never  can  be  saved  in  any  other 
way. 

They  show  us  how  we  may  die  in  peace. 
A  little  girl  in  India  was  dying.     She  had 


30  HOW  TO   LEARN   MUCH. 

learned  much  truth  from  her  Christian 
friends.  Looking  at  a  kind  lady,  who  had 
taught  her,  she  said,  "lam  dying,  but  I  am 
not  afraid  to  die ;  for  Christ  will  call  me  up 
to  heaven.  He  has  taken  away  all  my  sins, 
and  I  wish  to  die  now,  that  I  may  go  and 
see  him.  I  love  Jesus  more  than  I  love  any 
one  else."  She  had  hid  God's  word  in  her 
heart.  The  Holy  Ghost  had  taught  her 
what  the  word  of  God  meant.  Many  a  child, 
that  had  heard  of  Jesus,  has  been  as  happy 
in  death  as  the  little  Hindoo  girl  was. 

As  the  Bible  came  from  God,  it  is  full  of 
goodness,  wisdom  and  truth.  It  is  above  all 
price,  and  above  all  praise.  How  do  you 
treat  it  ?  It  may  be  that  you  would  not  like 
to  tell.  I  can  tell  you  how  you  ought  to 
use  it. 

You  ought  to  thank  God  for  it,  and  you 
ought  to  prize  it  very  highly.  It  is  worth 
more  than  all  precious  stones.  No  man  is 
wise  or  good  but  as  the  word  of  God  makes 
him  so.  Never  tear  your  Bible.  Love  it. 
Do  not  sell  it,  unless  you  can  get  another. 

It  would  be  well  to  get  much  of  it  by  heart, 
so  that  you  can  say  it  when  alone.     I  hope 


HOW   TO   LEARN   MUCH.  31 

you  have  so  learned  much  of  it.  A  wicked 
priest  found  a  little  boy  with  a  Bible  and 
burned  it.  The  boy  said:  "I  know  all 
Christ's  sermon  on  the  mount  by  heart,  and 
you  cannot  burn  that." 

You  should  read  the  Bible  much.  Some 
have  good  Bibles,  but  they  keep  them  out  of 
sight,  and  do  not  often  look  into  them. 
•That  is  a  poor  way.  The  Bible  will  do  you 
no  good,  unless  you  know  what  it  teaches. 
It  must  be  studied.  Read  it  often,  and  with 
care. 

Pray  to  God  to  teach  you  the  true  sense 
of  that  blessed  book.  David  was  a  great 
man.  Yet  how  often  does  he  pray,  "  Teach 
me  thy  statutes."  "Open  thou  mine  eyes, 
that  I  may  behold  wondrous  things  out  of 
thy  law."  God  can  teach  his  word  so  as  no 
man  can.     Ask  him  to  guide  you. 

Receive  the  Bible  not  as  the  word  of  man, 
but  as  it  is  in  truth,  the  word  of  God.  Kever 
dispute  against  the  truth  of  God.  Let  your 
heart  open  and  take  firm  hold  of  all  the  truth 
you  learn.  He  who  does  not  love  the  truth, 
cannot  be  saved. 

Live  by  the  truth.     Let  your  hopes  and 


32  HOW  TO   LEARN   MUCH. 

fears,  your  joys  and  sorrows,  your  heart  and 
life,  your  mind  and  tongue,  be  ruled  by  the 
Bible.  Its  truths  are  for  use,  and  not  merely 
for  talk.     Do  as  it  directs. 

Will  you  not  now  resolve  thus  ? 

1.  I  will  keep  my  Bible  near  me  and  take 
good  care  of  it. 

2.  I  will  read  some  of  it  every  night  and 
morning. 

3.  I  will  pray  God  to  fix  its  truths  in  my 
heart. 

4.  I  will  try  to  shun  all  that  the  Bible 
forbids. 

5.  I  will  try  to  do  all  that  the  Bible  re- 
quires. 

6.  I  will  never  make  fun  of  any  part  of 
the  Bible. 

7.  I  will  ask  questions  of  those  who  can 
teach  me  what  the  Bible  means. 

8.  I  will  try  to  come  to  Christ,  as  the 
Bible  says  I  must.  I  need  just  such  a  Sa- 
viour as  Jesus  is.  0  that  I  may  find  him, 
or  rather  be  found  of  him,  and  be  found  in 
him. 


33 


AXGELS  AND  MEN. 

So  far  as  we  know,  there  are  but  two  race? 
of  beings  who  can  know  and  love  God.  These 
are  angels  and  men.  I  will  tell  you  some 
things  about  them.  But  I  cannot  tell  yon 
all  that  I  might,  if  you  were  older.  Yet  I 
do  not  know  much  myself.  All  that  any  one 
knows  of  the  angels,  and  most  that  any  one 
knows  of  men,  is  learned  from  the  Bible. 
But  I  can  tell  you  some  things. 

I.  "We  do  not  know  when  God  made  any 
of  the  angels.  He  made  them  all  before  he 
made  man,  but  how  long  before,  no  man  or. 
earth  knows.  Xor  do  we  know  whether  God 
made  all  the  angels  at  once.  Some  think  he 
did,  and  he  may  have  done  so,  but  no  man 
can  prove  it.  Xor  do  we  know  whether  at 
the  last  day  there  will  be  more  angels  than 
men,  or  more  men  than  angels,  or  whether 
there  will  be  as  many  of  one  race  as  of  the 
other.  The  word  of  God  does  not  settle  any 
of  these  points,  except  that  angels  were  made 
before  men. 

II.  In  some  points  angels  and  men  are 

4 


34  ANGELS   AND   MEN. 

alike.  Angels  are  not  born.  They  were  all 
made  without  being  born.  "They  neither 
marry,  nor  are  given  in  marriage."  They 
are  not  male  and  female.  Angels  have  but 
one  nature.  They  are  spirits  without  bodies. 
Ever  since  the  first  man,  the  human  race  is 
born,  is  male  and  female,  and  all  men  have 
two  natures.  One  is  the  body ;  the  other  is 
the  soul.  Men  grow  old  and  weak.  But 
angels  do  not.  When  Christ  rose  from  the 
dead,  an  angel  was  seen  in  the  tomb,  and 
although  we  know  that  he  was  then  more 
than  four  thousand  years  old,  yet  he  looked 
like  a  " young  man."  There  have  been  some 
great  men.  But  the  least  angel  is  greater 
than  any  mere  man.  All  of  them  "excel  in 
strength.''  As  long  as  man  lives  in  the 
body,  he  stays  all  the  time  in  one  world. 
But  angels  pass  from  one  world  to  another 
all  the  time.  Jacob  saw  a  ladder  reaching 
from  earth  to  heaven,  and  the  angels  of  God 
ascending  and  descending.  That  ladder  has 
never  been  taken  away.  Men  never  help 
the  angels,  but  the  angels  often  help  men. 
One  of  them  came  and  strengthened  Christ 
in  his  agony.    "Are  they  not  all  ministering 


ANGELS   AND   MEN.  35 

spirits  sent  forth  to  minister  to  them  who 
shall  be  heirs  of  salvation?"  This  is  spoken 
of  all  the  good  angels. 

III.  But  we  know  that  angels  and  men 
are  by  nature  alike  in  some  things.  They 
are  all  creatures.  God  made  them  every  one. 
There  was  a  time  when  there  was  not  one  of 
them.  They  all  depend  on  God.  They  can- 
not live  except  as  He  holds  them  up.  God 
also  made  tliem  holy,  just,  pure,  and  true. 
He  made  man  upright.  He  made  the  angels 
upright.  God  also  made  them  all  to  have 
life  for  ever.  They  will  all  outlive  the  sun. 
They  will  live  as  long  as  God  shall  live. 
They  will  live  because  he  will  keep  them  in 
life.  When  God  made  the  angels  he  put 
them  all  on  trial.  And  when  he  made  man, 
he  put  him  on  trial  too.  But  he  did  not  try 
them  alike.  He  tried  every  angel  by  him- 
self. If  he  stood,  he  stood  for  none  but  him- 
self. If  he  fell,  he  fell  for  himself  alone. 
But  Adam  acted  both  for  himself  and  for  all 
mere  men  who  should  ever  be  born.  If  he 
stood,  they  should  stand.  If  he  fell,  they 
should  fall.  We  do  not  know  how  long 
either  angels  or  men  were  kept  on  trial ;  but 


6b  ANGELS   AND   MEN. 

we  do  know  that  many  angels  fell.  How 
many,  no  man  can  tell.  It  may  have  been  a 
third.  It  may  have  been  more.  It  may 
have  been  less.  But  legions  of  them  fell. 
And  Adam  fell,  and  with  him  we  all  fell  too. 
"By  one  man  sin  entered  into  the  world, 
and  death  by  sin."  "  Through  the  offence 
of  one,  many  be  dead."  "By  one  man's 
offence,  death  reigned  by  one."  "By  the 
offence  of  one,  judgment  came  upon  all  men 
to  condemnation."  "By  one  man's  disobe- 
dience, many  were  made  sinners."  "In 
Adam  all  die."  The  same  law  was  given  to 
angels  and  men.  It  called  for  perfect  love. 
All  were  bound  to  obey  it  with  all  the  heart. 
But  some  angels  did  not  keep  the  law. 
Neither  did  man.  They  fell  into  sin,  and 
thus  they  fell  under  the  curse  of  God,  and 
became  children  of  wrath.  As  soon  as 
angels  sinned,  God  drove  them  out  of  hea- 
ven. As  soon  as  man  sinned,  God  drove 
him  out  of  Eden.  Nor  did  he  ever  let  either 
of  them  return  to  their  first  home.  Sin  in 
an  angel,  and  sin  in  a  man  is  the  same 
thing.  It  consists  in  not  being  holy  and 
pure,  as  the  law  of  God  requires. 


ANGELS   AXD   MEN.  37 

IV.  But  God  did  not  treat  sinning  man 
and  sinning  angels  in  the  same  way.  If  you 
ask,  why?  I  cannot  tell.  It  was  not  be- 
cause God  could  not  have  saved  lost  angels, 
if  he  had  chosen  to  do  so.  If  Christ  had,  by 
the  will  of  God,  taken  on  him  the  nature  of 
angels,  he  might  have  been  their  Saviour. 
But  he  did  not.  Such  was  not  God's  plan. 
Nor  did  God  offer  mercy  to  lost  man,  be- 
cause he  was  better  than  lost  angels.  The 
angels  were  older  and  by  nature  higher  and 
greater  than  man.  It  is  a  strange  fact  that 
the  lojad-stone  will  not  attract  gold  and  silver, 
which  are  precious  metals:  but  it  will  attract 
iron,  which  is  a  base  metal.  So  the  love  of 
God  did  not  turn  to  those  high  fallen  beings ; 
but  it  turned  to  man,  who  is  the  lowest  and 
the  last  creature  that  has  reason,  and  that 
shall  live  for  ever.  God  did  not  owe  man 
any  mercy.  The  sentence  of  death  on  him 
was  as  just  as  on  the  angels  that  fell.  If  any 
still  ask,  Why  did  God  pity  wicked  man  and 
not  sinning  angels  ?  or,  Why  did  he  not 
destroy  both?  or,  Why  did  he  not  save 
both?  I  can  only  say:  "Even  so,  Father, 
for  so  it  seemed  good  in  thy  sight."  God 
4* 


38  ANGELS   AND   MEN. 

had  reasons.  He  has  good  reasons  for  all 
he  does.  But  he  has  not  told  us  what  his 
reasons  in  this  case  were.  I  do  not  know 
that  we  ever  shall  know  them.  To  guess  at 
them  i3  wicked.  "  Secret  things  belong  unto 
the  Lord,  our  God;  but  things  which  are 
revealed  belong  unto  us,  and  unto  our  chil- 
dren/ '  This  matter  is  not  revealed,  and  so 
does  not  belong  to  us. 

V.  But  what  love  did  God  show  to  sinful 
man,  that  he  did  not  show  to  sinful  angels  ? 
Much  every  way.  The  first  time  God  spoke 
to  man  after  his  sin,  he  freely  promised  a 
Saviour  to  him.  But  he  never  gave  to  sin- 
ning angels  any  reason  to  hope  for  a  Saviour. 
Indeed  he  never  has  spoken  one  word  of  love 
to  them  since  they  fell.  But  he  has  spoken 
many  precious  things  to  poor  sinful  men. 
The  Bible  is  full  of  them.  Nor  did  God 
ever  fail  to  keep  his  word.  In  due  time  the 
Father  sent  his  Son  to  die  for  men.  He 
bore  our  sins.  He  carried  our  sorrows.  He 
died  for  us.  He  died  not  for  the  angels. 
He  died  in  our  place.  To  fallen  men,  not 
to  fallen  angels,  is  the  Spirit- of  God  sent  to 
give  them  new  hearts.    No  gospel  is  preached 


ANGELS   AXD    MEN.  39 

in  hell.  There  are  no  means  of  grace  there. 
There  is  one  thing  I  never  could  see  into. 
It  is  this.  How  can  men  be  so  wicked  as  to 
hate  Jesus  Christ,  and  not  come  to  him  for 
life,  after  he  has  died  for  them?  I  know 
well  enough  why  fallen  angels  are  not  saved. 
There  is  no  mercy  for  them.  God  offers 
them  none.  But  I  know  men,  who  have 
heard  the  pure  gospel  for  forty  years,  and 
yet  they  do  not  love  Christ.  Sin  must  be 
very  strong,  and  the  heart  very  hard,  and 
the  will  very  proud,  when  men  will  not  love 
the  Lord  Jesus.  Such  will  at  last  lie  down 
in  "hell-fire  prepared  for  the  devil  and  his 
angels."  It  is  strange  that  men  will  seek  to 
go  to  the  prison  built  for  devils. 

VI.  But  holy  angels  and  holy  men  will  all 
meet  at  last.  Christ  is  the  Lord  of  angels, 
though  he  is  not  their  Redeemer.  He  is 
both  the  Lord  and  Redeemer  of  the  saints. 
Thomas  said  to  him:  "My  Lord,  and  my 
God."  Christ  is  the  Head  of  all  holy  angels 
and  men.  He  is  their  Chief.  He  is  their 
Captain.  All  of  them  love  and  worship  him. 
He  binds  them  all  fast  in  one  household. 
There  is  but  "one  family"  of  holy  creatures ; 


40  ANGELS   AND   MEN. 

and  Christ  is  Lord  of  all.  Angels  love  the 
saints  even  here.  Angels  and  all  the  saints 
who  have  left  this  world,  have  their  home 
together.  They  live  by  the  river  of  the 
water  of  life.  They  eat  of  the  fruit  of  the 
tree  of  life.  They  sing  praises  to  God  and 
the  Lamb  day  and  night.  The  world  they 
live  in  is  called  heaven.  It  is  the  first  and 
the  best  world  ever  made.  It  is  a  blessed 
place.  If  we  die  in  faith,  and  hope,  and 
love,  we  shall  go  there.  All  who  are  there 
are  full  of  love.  One  outshines  all  the  rest. 
It  is  Jesus  with  the  scars  upon  him.  He 
wears  a  crown  of  thorns  no  more.  IJe  is 
brighter  than  the  sun.  He  welcomes  all  his 
people  to  his  house.  How  happy  they  must 
be !  There  is  no  pride,  nor  anger,  nor  any 
sin,  nor  sickness,  nor  death  there;  no  thief, 
nor  liar,  nor  any  wicked  person  enters  there. 
All  sing  the  same  song  at  times.  But  sin- 
ners saved  by  grace  sing  "unto  him  that 
loved  us,  and  washed  us  from  our  sins." 
The  angels  cannot  sing  that,  but  they  love 
to  hear  it.  How  I  should  love  to  hear  those 
songs.  Would  not  you?  The  babes,  and 
children,    and   old   saints,  who   have    been 


WHO    RULES   THE   WORLD?  41 

washed  in  the  blood  of  Jesus,  all  sing.  None 
are  silent.  "We  ought  to  learn  to  sing  of 
Jesus  here,  that  we  may  sing  of  him  as  soon 
as  we  die.  Every  one  who  is,  by  divine 
grace,  made  fit  for  heaven,  will  go  there  as 
soon  as  he  dies. 


WHO  RULES  THE  WORLD? 

For  any  thing  I  see  there  might  as  well 
be  no  God,  as  a  God  who  should  not  know, 
and  see,  and  care,  how  things  go  on  in  the 
world.  The  idols  of  the  heathen  are  of  that 
sort,  and  they  are  nothing.  "  He  that  planted 
the  ear,  shall  he  not  hear?  he  that  formed 
the  eye,  shall  he  not  see  ?  he  that  teacheth 
man  knowledge,  shall  he  not  know?"  Our 
God  never  slumbers,  nor  sleeps,  nor  goes  on 
a  journey.  He  is  ever  awake,  and  his  ear 
is  open  to  the  cry  of  his  people.  He  never 
grows  weary.  He  is  never  sick.  He  faint eth 
not.  His  eyes  are  in  every  place,  beholding 
the  evil  and  the  good.  He  is  not  like  "the 
ostrich,  which  leaveth  her  eggs  in  the  earth, 


42  WHO   RULES   THE  WORLD? 

* 

and  warmeth  them  in  the  dust,  and  forgetteth 
that  the  foot  may  crush  them,  or  that  the 
wild  beast  may  break  them.''  But  He  is 
like  the  hen,  that  gathereth  her  chickens 
under  her  wings,  and  keeps  them  dry,  and 
warm,  and  safe.  The  Lord  God  is  a  sun  and 
a  shield.  He  rules  this  world.  He  rules  all 
things  and  all  worlds.  The  Bible  says  so : 
"His  kingdom  ruleth  over  all." 

He  rules  each  thing.  He  numbers  the 
very  hairs  of  our  heads.  He  takes  care  of 
little  insects,  and  fishes,  and  birds.  "Not  a 
sparrow  falleth  without  his  notice."  He  calls 
all  the  stars  by  their  names,  and  there  are 
known  to  be  more  than  five  hundred  millions 
of  them.  He  spreads  the  clouds  in  the  hea- 
ven. He  is  the  father  of  the  rain.  He 
makes  the  grass  to  grow  upon  the  moun- 
tains. "He  clothes  the  grass."  He  gives 
food  to  the  beast  and  to  the  young  ravens. 
He  gives  snow  like  wool.  He  scatters  the 
hoar-frost  like  ashes.  Who  can  stand  before 
his  cold?  He  hunts  the  prey  for  the  lion. 
He  sends  out  the  wild  ass  free.  He  gives 
the  goodly  plumage  to  the  peacocks.  He 
gives  to  the  horse  his  strength,  and  clothes  his 


WHO  RULES   THE   WORLD?  43 

neck  with  thunder.  He  shuts  up  the  sea 
with  doors,  so  tha^t  it  breaks  not  forth.  He 
enters  into  the  springs  of  the  sea.  He  knows 
the  place  and  the  bounds  of  light  and  of 
darkness.  He  gives  rain  and  fruitful  sea- 
sons, and  fills  men's  hearts  with  food  and 
gladness.  Angels,  men,  sun,  moon,  stars, 
the  heavens,  the  waters  above  us,  the  waters 
beneath  us,  dragons,  fire,  hail,  snow,  vapour, 
stormy  winds,  mountains,  hills,  trees,  beasts, 
cattle,  creeping  things,  flying  fowl,  kings,  all 
people,  young  men  and  maidens,  old  men 
and  children,  lightning  and  earthquakes,  war 
and  peace,  disease  and  death,  and  heaven  and 
hell,  are  all  ruled  by  God.  He  never  lets 
any  thing  go  out  of  his  reach,  or  beyond  his 
grasp.  He  holds  the  wind  in  his  fist.  So 
that  the  race  is  not  to  the  swift,  nor  the 
battle  to  the  strong,  nor  bread  to  the  wise, 
nor  riches  to  the  prudent,  nor  favour  to  men 
of  skill;  but  God  lifts  up  and  puts  down 
whom  he  will.  He  causes  men  to  rise  or  fall, 
to  be  rich  or  poor,  to  be  strong  or  weak,  to 
gain  or  lose.  The  side  God  is  on  always 
succeeds,  always  conquers.  So  that  a  horse 
is  a  vain  thing  for  safety,  and  a  host  is  no 


44  WHO  RULES   THE   WORLD? 

defence,  and  God  has  no  pleasure  in  the  legs 
of  a  man. 

God  rules  even  chance.  "  The  lot  is  cast 
into  the  lap ;  but  the  whole  disposing  thereof 
is  of  the  Lord."  To  us  there  is  much 
chance.  "  Time  and  chance  happeneth  to 
all  men."  But  to  God  there  is  no  chance. 
All  falls  out  by  a  wise  plan.  When  God 
had  made  up  his  mind  to  take  wicked  Ahab 
out  of  the  world,  he  did  not  send  any  one  to 
take  aim  at  him,  but  "a  man  drew  a  bow  at 
a  venture,  and  smote  him  between  the  joints 
of  the  harness,"  and  he  died.  God  can  save 
one's  life,  even  if  men  do  shoot  at  him.  An 
Indian  shot  seventeen  times  at  Washington 
in  Braddock's  defeat,  but  he  did  not  hurt 
him.  The  Indian  said  the  Great  Spirit 
would  not  let  that  man  be  hit.  When  David 
was  old,  he  said,  "  Thou  hast  covered  my 
head  in  the  day  of  battle." 

Cyrus  was  king  of  Persia  and  took  Baby- 
lon. Long  before  he  was  born,  God  thus 
wrote  to  him  by  name:  "I  am  the  Lord, 
there  is  no  God  besides  me.  I  girded  thee 
though  thou  hast  not  known  me.  I  form  the 
light,  and  create  darkness;  I  make  peace 


WHO    RULES   THE   WORLD?  45 

and  create  evil.  I,  the  Lord,  do  all  these 
things."  Isa.  xlv.  5,  7.  "  Shall  there  be 
evil  in  a  city  and  the  Lord  hath  not  done 
it?  Amos,  iii.  6.  Even  devils  are  subject 
unto  God.  Death  is  his  servant.  He  holds 
the  keys  of  death  and  of  hell.  He  opens 
and  none  can  shut.  He  shuts  and  none  can 
open.     " Behold,  God  is  great." 

He  rules  all  men,  great  and  small,  good 
and  bad.  "The  king's  heart  is  in  the  hand 
of  the  Lord."  Prov.  xxi.  1.  He  turns  it, 
just  as  a  man  turns  the  little  streams  of 
water  brought  into  his  garden  to  water  it. 
This  is  often  done  in  Asia.  A  man  makes 
the  water  run  any  way  he  pleases.  Just  so 
God  turns  the  king's  heart.  "A  man's  heart 
deviseth  his  way;  but  the  Lord  directeth  his 
steps."  "Man's  goings  are  of  the  Lord? 
how  can  a  man  then  understand  his  own 
way?"  So  that  good  Jeremiah  said:  "0 
Lord,  I  know  that  the  way  of  man  is  not  in 
himself:  it  is  not  in  man  that  walketh,  to 
direct  his  steps."  If  a  man  hate  and  vex 
us,  it  is  because  God  lets  him  loose  upon  us ; 
for  "when  a  man's  ways  please  the  Lord,  he 
5 


46  WHO   RULES   THE   WORLD? 

maketh  even  his  enemies  to  be  at  peace  with 
him."  Prov.  xvi.  7.  When  God  planted  the 
Jews  in  Canaan,  he  told  them  that  all,  who 
were  able,  must  go  up  to  the  holy  city  three 
times  every  year  to  worship  him.  They  had 
wicked  foes  all  around  them.  These  often 
made  war  on  them.  But  God  said:  "Nei- 
ther shall  any  man  desire  thy  land,  when 
thou  shalt  go  up  to  appear  before  the  Lord 
thy  God  thrice  in  the  year."  Ex.  xxxiv.  24. 
God  can  cause  the  wicked  not  to  wish  us  any 
harm,  and  yet  they  may  be  free  agents.  So 
God  led  Absalom  and  all  his  men  to  choose 
foolish  rather  than  wise  counsel.  2  Sam. 
xvii.  14.  When  God  will,  "he  turns  the 
wise  men  backward."  Isa.  xliv.  25.  God 
uses  the  wicked  as  a  man  uses  a  sword,  a 
rod,  an  axe,  or  a  saw.  Ps.  xvii.  10,  Isa.  x. 
15.  He  makes  bad  men  punish  themselves. 
Ps.  ix.  15,  16.  He  lets  them  punish  each 
other.  Isa.  x.  5,  6,  7,  12.  "He  makes  the 
wrath  of  man  to  praise  him,  and  the  remain- 
der of  wrath  he  will  restrain."  He  let  bad 
men  and  Satan  combine  to  put  Christ  to 
death.  But  life,  and  joy,  and  hope  spring 
from  that  death.     The  death  of  Christ  was 


WHO   RULES    THE   WORLD?  47 

the  most  dreadful  blow  God  ever  gave  to 
Satan's  power. 

God  rules  the  world  in  a  way  that  is  holy, 
wise,  just,  and  good.  His  way  is  always 
better  than  ours.  His  way  is  perfect.  We 
cannot  help  him  rule  the  world.  God  never 
errs,  never  does  wrong.  He  makes  no  mis- 
takes. 

And  he  alone  rules.  The  devil  is  not  the 
owner  of  this  world.  He  is  "the  ruler  of 
the  darkness  of  this  world, "  that  is,  he  leads 
men  who  are  in  darkness,  and  who  love  sin ; 
but  he  cannot  lead  them  further  than  God 
permits.  Satan  himself  is  bound  with  a 
chain.  He  could  not  touch  a  hair  of  Job's 
head  till  God  gave  him  leave.  Chance  is 
not  the  ruler  of  this  world.  Chance  is  blind, 
and  knows  nothing,  and  is  nothing.  God 
alone  rules  the  world.  He  is  all,  and  in  all, 
and  through  all,  and  over  all. 

If  these  things  be  so,  then  we  ought  to 
believe  them,  and  hold  them  fast.  Let  us 
never  doubt  that  God  reigns.  This  is  a 
great  truth.  To  know  it  will  guide  and  help 
us  much. 

But  we  must  not  try  to  be  wise  in  thi3 


48  WHO   RULES   THE  WORLD  ? 

matter,  but  by  taking  God's  word  as  true, 
and  by  seeing  what  he  does.  We  must  not 
try  to  reason  out  every  thing.  We  will  get 
lost  if  we  do.  Those  who  cannot  swim 
must  not  go  into  deep  water.  God's  ruling 
the  world  is  a  deep  matter.  His  path  is 
in  the  sea.  His  ways  are  past  finding  out. 
He  says,  "Be  still  and  know  that  I  am 
God." 

It  is  a  great  comfort  that  God  rules  the 
world.  I  am  glad  of  that.  Are  not  you  ? 
If  we  are  sick,  or  sad,  or  poor,  or  lose  our 
friends,  it  is  God  who  afflicts  us.  He  says : 
"  As  many  as  I  love,  I  rebuke  and  chasten." 
Luther  said,  "  Smite,  Lord,  if  thou  lovest 
me."  We  need  not  fear  any  man  if  God 
rules.  Those  three  good  young  men  said: 
"  We  are  not  careful  to  answer  thee  in  this 
matter.  If  it  be  so,  our  God,  whom  we 
serve,  is  able  to  deliver  us  from  the  burning 
fiery  furnace,  and  he  will  deliver  us  out  of 
thine  hand,  0  king.  But  if  not,  be  it  known 
to  thee,  0  king,  that  we  will  not  serve  thy 
gods."  That  was  a  good  answer.  God  kept 
them  safe.  The  fire  did  not  burn  them. 
The  Son  of  God  was  with  them.     If  you 


TIME   AXD    ETERNITY.  49 

have  time,  you  would  do  well  to  read  the 
third  chapter  of  Daniel. 

Let  us  put  our  souls,  our  lives,  and  all  we 
care  for,  in  the  hands  of  God.  Let  us  leave 
all  with  him.  He  brings  light  out  of  dark- 
ness, joy  out  of  sorrow,  and  good  out  of  evil. 
He  is  too  strong  for  all  his  foes  to  stand  up 
against  him.  He  is  too  wise  to  let  bad  men 
defeat  his  plans.  He  is  too  good  to  be 
unkind.  He  is  as  tender  as  a  shepherd,  a 
father,  a  nurse,  a  mother.  He  spreads  his 
wings  over  us. by  day  and  by  night.  He 
gives  us  richly  all  things  to  enjoy.  Let  us 
praise  him  for  the  past.  Let  us  trust  him 
for  the  time  to  come.  He  has  done  all 
things  well.  He  will  do  all  things  well. 
He  will  guide  us,  and  teach  us,  and  hold  us 
up,  and  keep  us  as  the  apple  of  his  eye,  if 
we  but  trust  in  him.  The  best  thing  we  can 
do  is  to  fear,  love,  obey,  and  trust  in  him. 


TIME  AND  ETERNITY. 

A  lady  once  looked  into  a  book  and  i 
a  word  which  made  her  much  afraid.     She 
5* 


50  TIME   AND   ETERNITY. 

could  not  sleep  that  night:  she  tossed  and 
groaned.  She  was  a  gay  woman.  She 
loved  life.  She  loved  this  world.  She  did 
not  wish  to  leave  this  world.  The  word  she 
saw  in  the  book  was  "eternity."  It  is  a 
solemn  word.  I  do  not  wonder  that  it  fills 
the  minds  of  sinners  with  fear.  Yet  the 
pious  do  not  hate  the  word.  They  think  of 
it  often.     They  love  to  think  of  it. 

But  what  is  eternity  ?  It  is  a  sea  which 
has  no  shore,  a  race  that  is  never  all  run,  a 
river  that  has  no  spring  and  no  mouth,  yet 
always  flows.  It  is  the  life-time  of  God,  who 
was  and  is,  and  is  to  come.  "  He  inhabits 
eternity."  It  is  for  ever  and  ever.  It  is  du- 
ration without  a  bound.  None  but  God  fully 
knows  what  it  is.  We  know  it  is  not  time 
told  by  hours,  days,  months,  years,  and  ages. 
We  speak  of  an  eternity  past  and  of  an  eter- 
nity to  come.  Yet  there  are  not  two.  But 
we  so  speak,  because  we  are  at  a  loss  for 
words.  We  go  back,  back,  back,  until  our 
minds  tire,  but  we  come  not  to  any  point 
where  eternity  began.  We  go  on,  on,  on, 
until  we  can  go  no  further,  and  yet  there  is 
no  end. 


TIME   AND    ETERNITY.  51 

I  was  once  in  a  school  for  the  blind.  The 
teacher  gave  this  sum  to  one  of  the  boys. 
He  was  to  work  it  out  in  his  mind.  "  A 
pile  of  sand  is  ten  feet  high,  ten  feet  wide, 
and  seventy  feet  long.  Each  cubic  inch 
contains  ten  thousand  grains.  A  bird  comes 
every  thousand  years  and  takes  away  one 
grain  at  a  time.  How  long  will  it  take  to 
carry  away  all  the  sand?"  The  little  blind 
boy  soon  gave  the  answer,  which  was,  that 
it  would  take  120,960,000,000,000  years. 
What  a  long  row  of  figures  !  It  means  one 
hundred  and  twenty  trillions  and  nine  hun- 
dred and  sixty  billions.  Now  put  all  the 
sand  on  the  sea-shore  into  one  heap,  and  let 
a  bird  take  away  one  grain  every  thousand 
years  till  all  is  gone,  and  yet  that  would  not 
be  the  end  of  eternity.     Eternity  has  no  end. 

Some  of  the  ancients  tried  to  give  some 
idea  of  eternity  by  drawing  a  circle.  A  cir- 
cle "has  no  end.  In  that  it  is  like  eternity. 
But  in  no  other  respect.  We  can  measure 
all  circles.  But  we  cannot  measure  eternity. 
None  but  God  knows  what  it  is. 

There  are  three  kinds  of  beings.  One 
kind  lives  in   time  only.      This   is  true   of 


52  TIME  AND   ETERNITY. 

birds,  and  fishes,  and  beasts.  They  come 
into  life  in  time.  They  die,  and  that  is  the 
last  of  them.     Their  end  is  in  time. 

Another  kind  comes  into  life  in  time,  but 
shall  live  always.  Such  are  angels  and  men, 
good  and  bad.  Men's  bodies  may  die,  but 
shall  live  again.  But  their  souls  live  on, 
and  on,  and  on,  for  ever.  Nor  do  angels 
ever  cease  to  live.  All  angels  and  all  men 
shall  live  as  long  as  God  lives. 

The  third  kind  of  being  is  God,  who 
always  was,  and  always  shall  be.  He  had 
no  beginning.  He  was  before  all  worlds. 
He  is  both  from  everlasting  and  to  everlast- 
ing. Man  is  not  from  everlasting,  but  he  is 
to  everlasting.  Beasts,  and  birds,  and 
fishes  are  neither  from  everlasting  nor  to 
everlasting.  They  belong  to  time  only,  and 
most  of  them  to  a  very  small  part  of  it. 
Thus  God  is  one  by  himself.  There  is  none 
like  him. 

Time  is  very  short.  I  have  often  thought 
that  time  was  like  the  Isthmus  of  Panama, 
which  is  a  narrow  piece  of  land.  On  one 
side  is  the  Pacific  Ocean ;  and  on  the  other 
is  the  Atlantic.     Time  is  like  that  strip  of 


TIME  AXD  ETERNITY.  53 

land.     It  lies  between  an  eternity  past  and 
an  eternity  to  come. 

Lo !  on  a  narrow  neck  of  land, 
'Twixt  two  unbounded  seas  I  stand, 

Yet  how  insensible : 
A  point  of  time,  a  moment's  spsce, 
Removes  me  to  yon  heavenly  place, 

Or  shuts  me  up  in  hell. 

Time  is  very  short.  It  will  soon  all  be 
gone.  It  is  like  a  cloud,  or  a  vapour,  that 
vanishes  away.  It  is  a  moment.  It  is  a 
little  moment.  It  is  like  a  weaver's  shuttle. 
It  flies  so  fast  you  cannot  see  it.  It  is  like 
a  man  riding  post.  It  stops  for  nobody. 
The  sun  and  moon  once  stood  still,  but  time 
never  stood  still.  The  shadow  on  the  sun- 
dial of  Ahaz  once  went  back  fifteen  degrees ; 
but  time  never  went  back  a  second.  Time 
will  soon  be  all  gone,  and  gone  for  ever.  A 
mighty  angel  will  stand  upon  the  land  and 
the  sea,  and  lift  his  hand  to  heaven,  and 
swear,  that  time  shall  be  no  more.  Yet 
long  before  he  shall  do  so,  time  to  you  and 
to  me  will  be  no  more.  Death  is  the  end  of 
time  to  men.  You  need  not  kill  time.  It 
will  soon  be  gone  without  such  folly.     Some 


54  TIME   AND   ETERNITY. 

sleep  too  much,  some  play  too  much,  some 
spend  their  days  in  trifles.  0  what  folly ! 
A  young  man  dying,  heard  the  clock  strike, 
and  said :  "  0  time,  it  is  right  thou  shouldst 
strike  thy  murderer  to  the  heart." 

If  man  is  to  live  for  ever,  how  much  is  his 
soul  worth  ?  Who  can  tell  ?  Man  cannot. 
Angels  cannot.  None  but  God  knows  the 
worth  of  a  soul.  It  is  worth  more  than  all 
the  houses,  and  lands,  and  gold,  and  silver 
on  earth.  Yet  how  little  do  some  think  of 
their  souls !  I  once  heard  a  boy  praying. 
And  what  do  you  think  he  prayed  for  ?  He 
asked  God  to  damn  his  soul.  He  is  dead, 
and  if  God  heard  his  prayer,  where  is  he 
now  ?  To  lose  the  soul  is  the  worst  thing 
that  could  come  on  any  man.  To  save  the 
soul  is  one  of  God's  greatest  works.  It  cost 
the  death  of  Christ.  The  pains  of  hell  and 
the  joys  of  heaven  will  never  end. 

These  things  deeply  concern  us.  We 
should  thank  God  for  telling  us  of  them. 
Stars  may  fall,  kings  may  be  put  down, 
wars  may  rage,  the  earth  may  shake,  and  we 
be  none  the  better,  and  none  the  worse. 
But  we  must  take  care  what  we  say,  and  do, 


TIME   AXD    ETERNITY.  55 

and  think,  and  feel.     For  what  a  man  sows 
in  this  world,  that  shall  he  reap  in  the  next* 

It  is  not  all  of  life  to  live, 
Nor  all  of  death  to  die. 

God  has  told  us  so.  There  is  no  doubt 
about  it.  Let  us  thank  him  for  not  let- 
ting us  live  in  the  dark  on  these  great 
matters. 

If  this  life  is  so  short,  and  the  next  life  is 
so  long,  we  ought  not  to  mind  our  pains  and 
sorrows  much.  If  God  is  our  God,  we  shall 
soon  cease  to  weep,  or  even  sigh.  There  is 
no  pain  in  heaven.  We  can  bear  almost 
any  thing,  if  it  will  soon  be  over.  Let  us 
never  be  very  sad  at  any  thing,  which  will 
not  make  us  sad  in  the  next  life.  He  who 
loves  God,  is  God's  son,  and  shall  be  heir  of 
all  things. 

Those,  who  live  in  sin,  and  laugh  at  holy 
things,  will  not  laugh  long.  They  will  soon 
weep  and  howl.  They  may  get  what  they 
wish  here.  But  their  sad  day  will  come. 
They  have  no  God.  They  have  no  good 
hope  through  grace.  0,  that  they  would 
think   of    these   things,    and   lay   them   to 


56  GOD  WILL   PUNISH   SIN. 

heart!      I  fear   some   of  them   never   will. 
But  I  wish  they  would. 

All  agree  that  it  is  a  solemn  thing  to  die. 
But  I  think  it  is  a  solemn  thing  to  live. 
How  wise  and  holy  we  ought  to  be !  How 
we  should  watch  and  pray,  fight  against  sin, 
and  strive  to  live  unto  God !  Soon  we  must 
all  go  to  our  long  home,  and  come  back  no 
more!  Are  we  ready?  Have  we  made 
peace  with  God?  Is  Jesus  Christ  all  our 
hope?  Have  our  hearts  been  changed? 
Do  we  love  to  pray?  Do  we  love  to  sing 
and  speak  God's  praises?  Do  we  love  the 
Sabbath-day?  Is  God  in  all  our  thoughts? 
Do  we  hate  all  sin  ?     Are  we  like  Christ  ? 


GOD  WILL  PUNISH  SUNT. 

"  My  mind  is  my  own,  and  I  will  think 
what  I  please;  my  tongue  is  my  own,  and  I 
will  say  what  I  please;  my  hands  are  my 
own,  and  I  will  do  what  I  please,"  said  one, 
who  loved  to  live  in  sin.  He  was  in  two 
errors.     1.  His  mind,  and  tongue,  and  hands 


GOD  WILL   PUXISH   SIN.  57 

were  not  his  own.  God  made  them,  and 
owned  them.  God  had  a  right  to  them  all. 
2.  If  they  had  been  his  own,  he  still  had  no 
right  to  do  wrong  with  them.  A  cane  may 
be  mine,  but  that  does  not  give  me  a  right  to 
strike  other  people  with  it.  We  owe  much 
to  ourselves.  We  owe  more  to  the  public. 
"We  owe  all  to  God.  He,  who  does  not  feel 
that  this  is  so,  and  does  not  live  by  the  law 
of  God,  commits  sin.  Sin  is  evil.  It  is  the 
worst  evil.  God  ought  to  punish  it.  God 
will  punish  it.  I  shall  prove  that  he  will 
punish  it. 

1.  He  can  punish  it  if  he  chooses.  He 
knows  all  sin,  and  what  it  deserves.  He 
can  find  out  every  sinner.  Find  him  out ! 
He  need  not  seek  him  at  all.  He  always 
sees  him,  and  holds  him  in  his  hand.  No- 
thing is  too  hard  for  God.  He  cast  the 
fallen  angels  into  hell.  He  brought  down 
Pharaoh  and  all  his  host  in  the  Red  sea. 
He  holds  the  winds  in  his  fist.  He  rules  the 
world.  He  has  all  power.  He  is  at  no  loss 
for  might  or  means. 

2.  God  is  holy  and  just,  and  so  he  hates 
sin.     Of  course,  then,  he  will  punish  it.     He 

6 


58  GOD  WILL   PUNISH   SIN. 

is  so  set  against  sin,  that  he  never  did,  and 
he  never  will  forgive  one  sin,  but  at  the  cost 
of  Christ's  death.  He  says  he  hates  sin, 
and  we  know  he  does,  and  so  we  know  he 
will  punish  it. 

3.  He  says  he  will  punish  it.  These  are 
some  of  the  texts:  "Their  feet  shall  slide  in 
due  time:"  "  Be  sure  your  sin  will  find  you 
out:"  "If  ye  will  not  yet  for  all  this  hearken 
unto  me,  then  will  I  punish  you  seven  times 
more  for  your  sins:"  "I  will  punish  the 
world  for  their  evil."  He  says  the  same 
thing  again  and  again  in  many  ways.  He 
says  he  will  "rain  snares,  fire  and  brim- 
stone" on  the  wicked.  These  are  very  awful 
words.  "The  soul  that  sinneth,  it  shall  die." 
Some  say,  God  is  too  good  to  punish  sin. 
But  if  he  is  too  good  to  punish  it,  I  should 
think  he  would  be  too  good  to  say  that  he 
will  punish  it.  Besides,  to  punish  sin  is  a 
great  proof  that  God  m  good.  All  good  men 
say  it  is  right  that  he  should  do  so.  It  is 
only  bad  men,  who  love  sin,  who  say  God 
ought  not  to  punish  the  wicked. 

4.  God  has  punished  sin.  He  sent  a 
storm  of  fire  and  brimstone  on  the  cities  of 


GOD  WILL   PUNISH    SIX.  59 

the  plain,  and  in  one  day  took  away  all  those 
guilty  people.  At  one  time  he  drowned  all 
mankind,  except  eight  souls.  He  has  sent 
the  sword,  and  other  curses,  on  many  cities 
and  nations.  He  has  built  that  great  prison 
called  hell,  as  a  place  of  punishment.  The 
rich  man,  who  lived  without  God  in  the 
world,  was  hardly  dead,  until  "in  hell  he 
lifted  up  his  eyes,  being  in  torments. "  Sin 
and  sorrow  go  together.  Some  men,  who 
live  in  sin,  seem  to  go  on  smoothly.  But 
they  only  seem  to  do  so.  They  have  stings 
of  conscience.  "  The  wicked  flee  when  no 
man  pursueth."  "A  dreadful  sound  is  in 
his  ears."  He  is  often  afraid  of  his  own 
shadow.  He  fears  the  dark.  He  fears 
death.  Or  if  he  has  so  hard  a  heart  that  he 
fears  not  here,  God  will  deal  with  him  in  the 
next  world.  There  "their  worm  dieth  not, 
and  their  fire  is  not  quenched. "  There  all 
who  make  or  love  a  lie  shall  have  their  part 
in  the  lake  of  fire. 

5.  Sin  is  so  evil,  that  it  ought  to  be 
punished.  It  is  the  worst  thing  in  all  the 
world.  It  is  the  cause  of  all  other  evils.  It 
ruins  man,  and  makes  him  as  a  beast.     It 


Oil  GOD  WILL   PUNISH   SIN. 

turned  angels  into  devils.  It  brings  the 
best  things  into  contempt.  It  makes  men 
hate  God.  It  digs  every  grave.  It  makes 
every  tear  to  flow.  It  puts  up  the  wrong. 
It  puts  down  the  right.  It  is  worse  than  all 
other  evils,  worse  than  war,  famine,  or  the 
plague.  It  fills  earth  with  sorrow,  and  hell 
with  wailings. 

If  sin  be  so  bad,  then — 1.  We  ought 
to  watch  and  pray  against  it.  We  should 
take  all  care  not  to  fall  into  any  form  of 
it.  No  man  ever  took  too  much  heed  not 
to  sin.  Some  have  been  too  much  afraid  of 
water,  or  of  men,  or  of  pain,  or  of  death, 
but  no  man  was  ever  too  much  afraid  of  sin. 
Our  great  danger  is,  that  we  neither  dread 
nor  hate  it  as  we  should.  We  may  safely 
abhor  it.  We  must  cry  to  God  to  keep  us 
from  it. 

2.  We  can  tell  whether  a  man,  or  a  boy, 
or  a  book,  or  a  girl,  do  us  good  or  harm,  if 
we  can  tell  what  they  make  us  think  of  sin. 
"Eools  make  a  mock  at  Bin."  Some  mock 
at  it  in  words,  some  in  deeds,  and  some  in 
books.  Nor  is  it  safe  for  us  to  be  with  such 
persons,  nor  to  read  such  books. 


GOD  WILL   PUNISH    SIX.  61 

3.  How  good  was  God  to  give  us  his  Son! 
Were  it  not  for  Christ,  sin  would  be  the 
ruin  of  us  all.  Sin  has  two  evils  in  it. 
There  is  a  curse  in  it.  This  curse  is  awful. 
It  is  the  curse  of  the  holy  God.  But 
"  Christ  hath  redeemed  us  from  the  curse  of 
the  law,  being  made  a  curse  for  us."  He 
bore  the  curse  due  for  our  sins  in  his  own 
body  on  the  tree.  He  bore  the  sin  of  many. 
How  little  do  we  think  of  him !  Nothing  so 
much  makes  a  good  man  doubt  whether  he 
has  a  new  heart,  as  his  want  of  more  love  to 
Christ.  I  wonder  men  love  him  so  little. 
His  love  in  dying  for  us  has  no  equal.  I 
never  have  heard  any  thing  like  it.  I  once 
heard  a  plain  man  preach  on  the  text,  "  God 
so  loved  the  world  that  he  gave  his  only 
begotten  Son,  that  whosoever  believeth  on 
him,  might  not  perish  but  have  everlasting 
life."  When  he  came  to  speak  of  God  giving 
his  only  begotten  Son,  *  he  said,  there  was 
once  a  city  in  a  state  of  siege.  And  there 
was  a  famine  in  the  city.  The  bread  was  all 
gone.  A  man  and  woman  had  nine  children, 
and  they  thought  they  would  all  die.  So 
the  father  and  mother  talked  to  each  other, 
6* 


62  GOD  WILL   PUNISH   SIN. 

and  at  last  they  agreed  that  it  was  better  to 
take  the  life  of  one  child,  and  cook  and  eat 
it,  than  to  let  all  die.  So  the  man  said  to 
his  wife,  Which  child  shall  we  kill?  The 
wife  said,  she  could  never  see  the  oldest  one 
die,  for  he  was  the  image  of  his  father.  The 
next  child  was  a  girl,  who  had  often  been 
sick.  Towards  her  the  hearts  of  her  parents 
were  very  tender.     You  know 

"  The  bird,  that  we  nurse,  is  the  bird  that  we  love :" 

And  they  could  not  kill  her.  So  they 
went  over  the  list  of  all  the  nine.  But  they 
could  not  find  one  which  they  were  willing  to 
see  die,  even  to  save  the  life  of  the  rest. 
"Now,"  said  the  preacher,  "God  had  but 
one  Son,  and  he  loved  him  more  than  any 
father  or  mother  ever  loved  a  son,-  and  yet 
he  freely  gave  him  up  to  die,  not  for  his 
friends,  but  for  his  foes.  0!  here  is  love 
indeed."  The  preacher  said  this  in  a  tender 
manner.  Many  wept,  but  whether  they 
turned  from  sin  and  loved  Christ,  I  do  not 
know.  I  hope  some  of  them  did.  I  know 
all  of  them  ought  to  have  done  so.  Don't 
you  think  so  ? 


SOME  STRANGE  THINGS.        63 

The  other  thing  in  sin,  is  its  spot.  It  puts 
a  deep  and  red  stain  on  our  souls.  Some 
people  think  that  the  stain  of  blood  shed  in 
murder  on  a  floor  will  never  wash  out.  Per- 
haps they  are  wrong.  But  all  the  tears  that 
man  can  shed,  and  all  the  water  in  the 
world,  will  not  wash  out  the  stain  of  sin.  It 
defiles  the  soul  in  the  worst  way.  It  is  the 
only  thing  that  makes  a  soul  ugly.  God  has 
sent  his  Holy  Spirit  to  cleanse  our  hearts  by 
the  blood  of  Jesus.  That  good  Spirit  is  full 
of  love.  He  has  mercy  on  us,  comes  to  us, 
calls  us,  and  weans  us  from  sin.  There  is 
none  that  can  cleanse  us  but  God's  Spirit. 
We  should  think  of  these  things  daily,  and 
ask  God  not  to  leave  us.  If  he  take  his 
Holy  Spirit  from  us,  we  shall  be  vile,  and 
base,  and  filthy  for  ever. 


SOME  STRANGE  THINGS. 

A  little  boy  asked  me  one  day,  what  was 
the  strangest  thing  I  ever  saw.  I  love  to 
hear   such  questions   from    a   child.      So  I 


64  SOME   STRANGE   THINGS. 

talked  with  him  a  while  about  many  things, 
that  were  quite  strange,  and  told  him  I  did 
not  know  which  was  the  most  so. 

But  I  have  thought  more  on  the  matter, 
and  I  think  I  can  now  tell.  I  think  man  is 
the  strangest  of  all  things  I  ever  saw.  He 
has  a  body  and  a  soul.  They  can  live  to- 
gether, and  the  soul  can  live  by  itself.  This 
body  is  very  curious.  It  was  made  so. 
The  human  hand  is  the  best  engine  I  ever 
saw.  With  it  a  man  can  strike  a  blow,  or 
throw  a  stone,  or  lift  a  weight.  With  it  one 
can  write,  or  sew,  or  knit,  or  cut,  or  hold  on, 
or  let  go.  He  can  climb  up  or  down  trees 
or  ropes ;  he  can  saw,  or  hammer,  or  sweep, 
or  rub,  or  scrape,  or  chop,  or  fire  a  gun,  or 
drive  a  plane,  or  split  a  rock  or  a  log.  Our 
hands  help^us  to  walk  and  to  ride.  Indeed,  I 
have  never  seen  any  thing  that  could  be  put 
to  so  many  uses  as  the  hand  of  man.  There 
is  his  heart  too.  It  beats  all  day,  and  all 
night,  and  all  his  life,  while  he  eats,  and 
while  he  sleeps.  It  beats  just  as  well  when 
he  does  not  think  of  it  as  when  he  does.  It 
drives  the  blood  to  the  very  ends  of  his  fin- 
gers and  toes,  and  draws  it  back  again,  and 


SOME  STRANGE  THINGS.        65 

makes  it  pure  and  good,  and  then  drives  it 
through  the  whole  body  again.  Man's  brain 
is  very  strange  also.  It  is  acted  on  by  all 
that  he  sees,  and  hears,  and  smells,  and  tastes, 
and  feels. 

But  his  soul  is  yet  more  strange.  It  can 
think,  reason,  remember,  imagine,  love,  hate, 
fear,  hope,  be  glad  and  be  sorry.  It  can 
hold  vast  stores  of  wisdom  and  truth.  It 
can  measure  the  distance  from  the  earth  to 
the  sun.  It  has  told  the  size  of  the  sun  and 
moon.  It  can  make  prose  and  poetry.  It 
can  love  God,  and  be  wise.  It  can  hate  him, 
and  be  a  fool. 

This  body  and  soul  are  bound  closely  to- 
gether, yet  they  are  not  alike.  The  body  is 
gross.  You  can  weigh  it,  and  measure  it, 
and  divide  it.  It  has  parts.  It  is  matter. 
But  the  soul  is  spirit.  You  cannot  see  it,  or 
weigh  it,  or  divide  it.  Yet  the  soul  and 
body  suit  each  other  very  well.  The  body 
cannot  love  the  soul,  because  the  body  is  but 
dust  and  ashes.  But  the  soul  loves  the 
body.  "No  man  ever  yet  hated  his  own 
flesh."  The  soul  and  body  cease  to  live  to- 
gether at  death,  but  they  will  join  each 
other  at  the  last  great  day. 


bb  SOME   STRANGE   THINGS. 

Nor  is  this  all.  The  soul  and  body  may 
part  any  moment.  One  man  died  laughing 
at  a  picture  of  an  old  woman  which  he  had 
made.  Some  die  of  joy.  Many  die  of 
grief.  Some  die  from  hard  work,  and  many 
from  hard  study,  and  still  more  from  hard 
drinking.  Some  are  killed  by  sloth.  Some 
die  of  wounds.  Many  die  of  disease.  Some 
die  young,  and  some  die  old.  The  sting  of 
a  bee,  or  the  scratch  of  a  pin  may  take  life. 

Our  life  contains  a  thousand  springs, 

And  dies  if  one  be  gone; 
Strange  that  a  harp  of  thousand  strings, 

Should  keep  in  tune  so  long. 

I  do  not  wonder  that  one  said:  "I  am  fear- 
fully and  wonderfully  made :  marvellous  are 
thy  works,  and  that  my  soul  knoweth  right 
well."  Ps.  cxxxix.  14. 

But  man  is  a  sinner,  a  great  sinner.  He 
sins  against  God.  He  sins  all  the  time. 
He  even  hates  God.  To  hate  an  enemy  is 
bad ;  to  hate  a  friend  is  worse ;  but  to  hate 
God  is  worst  of  all.  God  is  man's  best 
friend.  God  has  done  more  for  each  man, 
than  all  men  have  done  for  Him.  If  men  do 
hate   God,  it  must  be,  as   the   Bible  says, 


SOME  STRANGE  THINGS.        67 

"without  a  cause. "  If  men  die  sinners, 
they  will  sin  always.  When  men  die,  God 
says ;  "  He  that  is  unjust,  let  him  be  unjust 
still;  and  he  which  is  filthy,  let  him  be  filthy 
Still."  Men  cannot  be  born  again  after 
they  die.  It  is  then  too  late  to  pray  and 
turn  to  God. 

And  a  very  little  thing  may  make  us 
think  it  right  to  live  in  sin,  because  we  love- 
it.  One  bad  book  has  ruined  thousands. 
One  bad  boy  has  taught  many  others  to  lie, 
and  steal,  and  cheat,  and  curse,  and  swear, 
and  so  live  in  sin,  and  die  in  sin,  and  be  lost 
for  ever.  Sometimes  a  word  seems  to  make 
men  worse.  Even  a  look  has  made  a  man 
bold  in  sin. 

Besides,  a  thing  once  done  can  never  be 
undone.  We  may  repent  of  it,  and  cease  to 
do  it ;  and  God  in  love  for  Christ's  sake  may 
forgive  it.  But  it  cannot  be  undone.  God 
will  bring  every  secret  thing  into  judgment, 
whether  it  be  good  or  evil.  Nor  will  a  man's 
being  sorry  for  a  thing  always  keep  it  from 
doing  harm.  Many  have  taught  vice  to 
others,  and  been  sorry  for  it.  But  the 
change  in  the  teacher  did  not  reform  the 
taught. 


68  SOME   STRANGE  THINGS. 

Bad  men  wax  worse  and  worse  every  day. 
As  long  as  sin  lives  in  us,  it  grows  stronger. 
We  may  begin  with  a  little,  but  if  God  lets 
us  alone,  we  will  surely  go  from  bad  to 
worse.  The  worse  men  are,  the  more  apt 
they  are  to  think  well  of  themselves.  They 
are  made  blind,  and  dull,  and  stupid,  by 
sin.  All  wicked  persons  are  nigh  unto  hell, 
and  their  end  is  to  be  burned.  Yet  see  how 
they  shut  their  eyes,  and  go  on,  even  when 
warned.  How  stupid  men  are,  more  so  than 
an  ox  or  an  ass.  For  "the  ox  knoweth  his 
owner,  and  the  ass  his  master's  crib,  but  my 
people  doth  not  know,  Israel  doth  not  con- 
sider." "  Yea,  the  stork  in  the  heaven  know- 
eth her  appointed  times,  and  the  turtle,  and 
the  crane,  and  the  swallow  observe  the  time 
of  their  coming;  but  my  people,"  says  God, 
"know  not  the  judgment  of  the  Lord." 

The  brutes  obey  their  God, 
And  bow  their  necks  to  men ; 

But  we  more  base,  more  brutish  things, 
Reject  his  easy  reign. 

We  are  strange  creatures.     We  love  not 
the  most  lovely  things.     We  hate  not  the 


SOME   STRANGE   THINGS.  69 

most  hateful  things.  We  fear  not  the  most 
fearful  things.  Nor  are  we  won  by  the  most 
•winning  things.  God  commands,  but;  we 
obey  not.  He  calls,  but  we  hearken  not. 
He  threatens,  but  we  tremble  not.  He  in- 
vites, but  we  go  not.  He  offers  life,  and  we 
refuse  it.  He  points  us  to  Jesus,  and  we 
turn  away  from  him.  He  says,  "Why  will 
ye  die?"  And  we  can  give  no  good  reason, 
but  we  go  on  in  sin.  He  shows  us  hell,  and 
begs  us  to  avoid  it,  but  we  rush  madly  on. 
Is  it  not  strange  that  the  wicked  love  death, 
hate  their  own  souls,  flee  from  mercy,  and 
dig  into  hell?  Man  cannot  save  himself. 
None  but  Christ  can  save  him.  But  man 
can  and  does  destroy  himself.  Man  cannot 
raise  himself  to  heaven,  but  he  can  work  his 
way  to  hell.  There  is  something  in  sin  which 
I  cannot  explain.  It  is  strange.  It  is  folly. 
It  is  madness.  It  hurts  none  so  much  as  him 
who  commits  it.  It  is  the  only  thing  that 
ever  does  much  hurt  any  man.  Yet  sinners 
love  it,  nurse  it  in  their  hearts,  and  will  not 
let  it  go.  If  any  boy  ever  asks  me  again, 
what  is  the  strangest  thing  I  ever  saw,  I 
mean  to  tell  him  that  I  think  the  man  who 
T 


70  SOME   STRANGE   THINGS. 

lives  in  sin,  when  he  knows  better,  is  the 
strangest  of  all  things  I  ever  saw.  But  I 
hope  that  you,  who  read  this  book,  will  not 
live  in  sin  one  hour  more.  It  is  time  to  quit 
it.  Yes,  it  is  high  time  to  forsake  sin. 
"Cease  to  do  evil;  learn  to  do  well."  "Seek 
ye  the  Lord  while  he  may  be  found ;  call  ye 
upon  him  while  he  is  near."  He  is  very 
near  now,  but  soon  he  may  leave  you.  And 
if  you  die  in  sin,  he  will  always  be  so  far  off, 
that  he  will  not  hear  you  any  more.  I  wish 
you  would  pray  to  him  with  all  your  heart. 
If  you  would,  he  would  hear  and  save  you. 
If  you  are  old  enough  to  know  what  you  are 
reading,  you  are  old  enough  to  come  to 
Christ.  He  is  waiting  to  be  gracious  to  you. 
He  says,  "I  love  them  that  love  me:  and 
those  that  seek  me  early  shall  find  me." 
Kind  Saviour,  draw  men,  draw  us  to  thee; 
make  us  willing  in  the  day  of  thy  power. 
He  says,  "My  son,  give  me  thy  heart."  You 
ought  to  give  him  your  heart.  No  one  is  so 
worthy  of  it.  No  one  has  been  so  kind  to 
you  as  he  has.  He  is  God's  dear  Son,  and 
man's  great  Saviour.     "Will  you  love  him  ? 


SOME   STRANGE   THINGS.  71 

You  cannot  love  him,  if  you  love  sin.  You 
cannot  love  him  without  a  new  heart. 

How  just  it  will  be  in  God  to  send  away 
from  the  light  of  his  face  all  who  hate  him. 
He  will  send  away  none  else.  He  is  able  to 
save,  and  he  will  save  all  who  now  come  to 
him  through  Jesus  Christ.  But  he  will  save 
none  others.  He  is  a  holy  God,  and  he 
hates  all  sin.  He  never  was  pleased,  and  he 
never  will  be  pleased,  with  sinners. 

Think,  too,  he  may  call  you  to  his  bar  any 
day.  You  have  no  lease  for  your  life.  You 
cannot  tell  what  an  hour  may  bring  forth. 
This  may  be  your  last  day  on  earth.  What 
you  do,  do  quickly.  Be  in  earnest.  Flee  for 
your  life.  Look  not  behind  you.  Tarry  not 
an  hour.  Remember  Lot's  wife.  Go  now  to 
Christ.     Say. 

I  can  but  perish  if  I  go ; 

I  am  resolved  to  try, 
For  if  I  stay  away,  I  know 

I  must  for  ever  die. 

Yes,  if  you  stay  away,  you  must  for  ever 
die.  There  is  no  doubt  about  it.  0  come, 
and  welcome,  to  Jesus  Christ. 


72 


SOMETHING  STILL  STRANGER. 

There  are  strange  things  told  every  where. 
Strange  sights  may  be  seen  in  every  city  and 
country.  Man  is  the  strangest  being  I  ever 
saw.  But  God  is  the  greatest  wonder  I  ever 
heard  of.  I  have  told  you  a  little  of  him. 
But  the  greatest  wonder  in  God  is  his  love 
to  sinners,  at  least  it  seems  so  to  me.  The 
Apostle  John  saw  many  miracles  on  earth, 
and  wonders  in  heaven,  yet  he  says:  "Be- 
hold, what  manner  of  love  the  Father  hath 
bestowed  on  us,  that  we  should  be  called  the 
sons  of  God!"  I  do  not  wonder  that,  when 
speaking  on  such  a  subject,  he  said,  "Be- 
hold !"  He  adds  that,  so  great  is  this  love,  that 
"  the  world  knoweth  us  not."  If  God  loved 
us  so  as  to  make  us  poets,  orators,  generals, 
or  kings,  the  world  would  know  us.  It  knew 
Homer,  and  Cicero,  and  Caesar,  and  Bona- 
parte, in  all  their  greatness.  But  it  "  knows 
not  the  sons  of  God."  The  reason  is  because 
it  "knows  not  God,"  who  loves  sinners  so  as 
to  make  sons  of  them. 

I  once  heard  a  man  in  the  pulpit  say,  that 


SOMETHING   STILL    STRANGER.  73 

he  did  not  know  which  were  the  greatest,  our 
sins,  or  God's  mercies.  It  seems  to  me  he 
did  not  know  much.  He  was  hardly  fit  to 
preach,  or  he  would  not  have  said  that.  Our 
sins  are  very  great.  They  are  far  greater 
than  any  man  ever  saw  them  to  be.  But  if 
God's  mercies  had  not  been  greater  than  our 
sins,  we  should  all  now  be  in  hell.  That  is 
certain.  Our  sins  rise  like  the  mountains 
towards  heaven.  But  God's  mercies  are 
above  the  heavens.  Our  sins  are  the  acts 
of  worms.  His  mercies  are  the  mercies  of  a 
God.  We  are  less  than  the  least  of  all  his 
mercies.     Man  is  vile,  but  "God  is  love." 

"When  the  Lord  Jesus,  who  is  "the  ex- 
press image"  of  God,  was  upon  earth,  he  said 
and  did  many  things  to  let  men  see  that  he 
loved  them,  and  that  God  loved  them,  even 
if  they  had  sinned  much.  I  cannot  tell  you 
all  that  he  said  and  did  to  this  end.  I  will 
just  give  you  a  few  verses  from  the  Tth  chap* 
ter  of  Luke.  "And  one  of  the  Pharisees 
desired  Jesus  that  he  would  eat  with  him. 
And  he  went  into  the  Pharisee's  house,  and 
sat  down  to  meat.  And  behold,  a  woman  in 
the  city,  which  was  a  sinner,  when  she  knew 
7* 


74  SOMETHING   STILL   STRANGER, 

that  Jesus  sat  at  meat  in  the  Pharisee's 
house,  brought  an  alabaster  box  of  ointment, 
and  stood  at  his  feet  behind  him  weeping, 
and  began  to  wash  his  feet  with  tears,  and 
did  wipe  them  with  the  hairs  of  her  head, 
and  kissed  his  feet,  and  anointed  them  with 
the  ointment.  Now,  when  the  Pharisee  which 
had  bidden  him,  saw  it,  he  spake  within  him- 
self, saying,  This  man,  if  he  were  a  prophet, 
would  have  known  who,  and  what  manner  of 
woman  this  is  that  toucheth  him :  for  she  is 
a  sinner.  And  Jesus,  answering,  said  unto 
him,  Simon,  I  have  somewhat  to  say  unto 
thee.  And  he  saith,  Master,  say  on.  There 
was  a  certain  creditor,  which  had  two  debt- 
ors: the  one  owed  five  hundred  pence,  and 
the  other  fifty.  And  when  they  had  nothing 
to  pay,  he  frankly  forgave  them  both.  Tell 
me,  therefore,  which  of  them  will  love  him 
most  ?  Simon  answered  and  said,  I  suppose 
that  he,  to  whom  he  forgave  most.  And  he 
said  unto  him,  Thou  hast  rightly  judged. 
And  he  turned  to  the  woman,  and  said  unto 
Simon,  Seest  thou  this  woman  ?  I  entered 
into  thine  house,  thou  gavest  me  no  water 
for  my  feet:  but  she  hath  washed  my  feet 


SOMETHING   STILL   STRANGER.  75 

with  tears,  and  wiped  them  with  the  hairs  of 
her  head.  Thou  gavest  me  no  kiss :  but  this 
woman,  since  the  time  I  came  in,  hath  not 
ceased  to  kiss  my  feet.  Mine  head  with  oil 
thou  didst  not  anoint :  but  this  woman  hath 
anointed  my  feet  with  ointment.  Vf  herefore, 
I  say  unto  thee,  Her  sins,  which  are  many, 
are  forgiven;  for  she  loved  much:  but  to 
whom  little  is  forgiven,  the  same  loveth  little. 
And  he  said  unto  her,  Thy  sins  are  for- 
given." 

I  think  this  is  one  of  the  sweetest  parts  of 
all  the  Bible.  It  suits  my  case  so  well. 
Does  it  not  suit  you?  I  would  rather  feel 
like  this  poor  woman  than  have  all  the  good 
works  of  all  the  men  who  ever  lived,  as  a 
ground  of  my  hope  in  God.  I  had  a  friend 
who  loved  Christ,  and  not  long  before  he 
died,  he  told  them  how  to  bury  him,  and  what 
to  put  on  his  grave  stone.  Besides  his  name 
and  age  there  were  these  words,  "A  sinner 
saved  by  grace."  I  like  that  very  much. 
To  be  saved  by  grace  is  not  merely  the  only 
way,  but  it  is  also  the  lest  way  for  us  to  be 
saved.     It  suits  us  exactly. 

The  business   of   Christ   is  with   sinners. 


76  SOMETHING    STILL    STRANGER. 

He  receives  such.  He  came  "to  seek  and  to 
save  that  which  was  lost."  He  was  "full 
of  grace,"  as  well  as  "  of  truth."  He  never 
has  rejected  any  sinner  that  came  to  him 
humbly.  Yet  he  is  no  more  loving  than  the 
Father  or  the  Holy  Spirit.  Jesus  Christ 
did  not  come  into  the  world  to  make  the 
Father  love  us.  No :  "  God  so  loved  the 
world  that  he  gave  his  only  begotten  Son." 
The  Holy  Spirit  too  is  tender,  and  gentle, 
and  loving.  When  he  came  down  upon 
Christ  at  his  baptism,  it  was  like  a  dove. 
And  you  know  the  dove  is  the  very  gentlest 
of  all  creatures.  So  that  the  love  and  mercy 
shown  to  sinners  is  from  the  Father,  Son, 
and  Holy  Ghost.  We  feel  a  nearness  to 
Christ  because  he  took  our  nature  on  him. 
But  all  the  persons  of  the  Godhead  love  and 
pity  sinners.  Let  me  tell  you  some  of  the 
fruits  of  God's  love. 

1.  The  Father  gave  the  Son.  There 
never  was  such  a  Father.  There  never  was 
such  a  Son.  There  never  was  such  a  gift 
made  even  by  God. 

2.  The  Son  gave  his  face  to  smiting  and 
spitting,  his  head  to  a  crown  of  thorns,  his 


SOMETHING   STILL    STRANGER.  77 

body  to  the  cross,  and  his  soul  a  sacrifice  for 
sins.  He  wept,  and  bled,  and  died,  not  for 
himself,  but  for  us  enemies. 

8.  The  Holy  Spirit  comes  into  our  hearts, 
calls  us,  renews  us,  works  in  us  faith,  and 
love,  and  hope,  and  joy,  and  peace,  and 
repentance. 

4.  Out  of  love  God  pardons  millions  of 
sinners.  He  forgives  many,  many  sins  in 
all  who  are  saved.  He  does  all  this  freely, 
"  without  money  and  without  price."  He 
has  pardoned  more  men,  and  forgiven  in 
each  of  them  more  and  greater  sins,  than  all 
men  ever  did. 

5.  Out  of  mere  mercy  he  gives  to  men 
new  hearts,  and  he  keeps  them  from  the 
evil  that  is  in  the  world.  He  guides  them, 
cheers  them,  makes  them  patient  in  sorrows, 
and  happy  in  death. 

6.  Of  his  mere  love,  he  gives  heaven  for  a 
home  to  all  that  love  him.  I  do  not  know 
much  about  heaven.  Xo  man  does.  But 
there  is  nothing  in  it  that  would  give  pain, 
and  there  is  in  it  all  that  would  give  pleasure 
to  one  who  had  a  holy  heart.  "  The  Lamb  is 
the  light  thereof.''      Heaven  is  full  of  joy? 


78  SOMETHING   STILL   STRANGER. 

full  of  songs  of  praise,  full  of  glory.  There 
are  many  there  who  died  before  they  were 
half  as  old  as  you.  If  you  should  die  to-day, 
are  you  fit  to  go  there  ?  Have  you  got  a  new 
heart?  Do  you  love  Christ?  Do  you  love 
all  the  commandments?  Do  you  love  the 
Sabbath?  Do  you  love  your  enemies? 
Christ  loved  his  foes  and  died  for  them. 
There  never  was  such  a  friend  as  Jesus 
Christ.  I  wish  all  loved  him.  There  never 
was  such  love  as  the  love  of  God  to  men.  I 
have  seen  a  beautiful  hymn  about  God's 
love.  You  may  never  have  seen  it.  So  I 
will  put  it  in.  I  wish  you  would  learn  it, 
and  learn  to  sing  it.     Here  it  is. 

Love  divine,  all  love  excelling", 

Joy  of  heaven,  to  earth  come  down ; 
Fix  in  us  thy  humble  dwelling", 

All  thy  faithful  mercies  crown. 
Jesus,  thou  art  all  compassion, 

Pure,  unbounded  love  thou  art; 
Visit  us  with  thy  salvation, 

Enter  every  longing  heart. 

Breathe,  O !  breathe  thy  loving  Spirit, 

Into  every  troubled  breast ; 
Let  us  all  in  thee  inherit, 

Let  us  find  thy  promised  rest : 


A   PAIN   IX   THE   HEAD.  79 

Take  away  the  love  of  sinning, 

Alpha  and  Omega  be, 
End  of  faith,  as  its  beginning, 

Set  our  hearts  at  liberty. 

Come,  almighty  to  deliver, 

Let  us  all  thy  life  receive, 
Suddenly  return,  and  never, 

Never  more  thy  temples  leave. 
Thee  we  would  be  always  blessing, 

Serve  thee  as  thine  hosts  above ; 
Pray,  and  praise  thee  without  ceasing, 

Glory  in  thy  precious  love. 

Finish  then  thy  new  creation, 

Pure,  unspotted  may  we  be : 
Let  us  see  our  whole  salvation 

Perfectly  secured  by  thee ; 
Changed  from  glory  into  glory, 

Till  in  heaven  we  take  our  place ; 
Till  we  cast  our  crowns  before  thee, 

Lost  in  wonder,  love  and  praise. 


A  PAIX  IX  THE  HEAD. 

I  love  to  be  with  good  and  happy  children. 
It  makes  my  old  heart  glad  to  see  them 
merry.  I  love  to  read  of  them  too.  I  shall 
always  be  glad  that  I  have  read  of  some 


80  A   PAIN   IN   THE   HEAD. 

good  children.  I  like  the  way  the  Bible 
speaks  of  children.  There  was  little  Moses 
in  the  basket  in  the  river.  How  God  took 
care  of  him!  There  was  Samuel  with  his 
little  new  coat,  which  his  mother  made  for 
him  every  year.  There  was  Timothy  too, 
getting  his  lesson  in  the  Bible,  with  his 
mother  and  grandmother  to  help  him. 

One  story  in  the  Bible  I  always  did  like, 
although  it  is  about  a  child  that  died.  It  is 
this:  "And  it  fell  on  a  day,  that  Elisha 
passed  to  Shunem,  where  was  a  great 
woman;  and  she  constrained  him  to  eat 
bread.  And  so  it  was,  that  as  oft  as  he 
passed  by,  he  turned  in  thither  to  eat  bread. 
And  she  said  unto  her  husband,  Behold  now, 
I  perceive  that  this  is  a  holy  man  of  God, 
which  passeth  by  us  continually.  Let  us 
make  a  little  chamber,  I  pray  thee,  on  the 
wall:  and  let  us  set  for  him  there  a  bed,  and 
a  table,  and  a  stool,  and  a  candlestick ;  and 
it  shall  be,  when  he  cometh  to  us,  that  he 
shall  turn  in  thither.  And  it  fell  on  a  day, 
that  he  came  thither,  and  he  turned  into  the 
chamber,  and  lay  there.  And  he  said  to 
Gehazi,  his  servant,  Call  this  Shunammite. 


A   PAIX   IN   THE    HEAD.  81 

And  when  he  had  called  her,  she  stood 
before  him.  And  he  said  unto  him,  Say 
now  unto  her,  Behold,  thou  hast  been  care- 
ful for  us  with  all  this  care ;  what  is  to  be 
done  for  thee  ?  Wouldest  thou  be  spoken  for 
to  the  king,  or  to  the  captain  of  the  host  ? 
And  she  answered,  I  dwell  among  mine  own 
people.  And  he  said,  What  then  is  to  be 
done  for  her  ?  And  Gehazi  answered, 
Verily,  she  hath  no  child,  and  her  husband  is 
old.  And  he  said,  Call  her.  And  when  he 
had  called  her,  she  stood  at  the  door.  And 
he  said,  About  this  season,  according  to  the 
time  of  life,  thou  shalt  embrace  a  son.  And 
she  said,  Nay,  my  Lord,  thou  man  of  God, 
do  not  lie  unto  thy  handmaid.  And  the 
woman  conceived,  and  bare  a  son  at  that 
n  that  Elisha  had  said  unto  her,  accord- 
ing to  the  time  of  life.  And  when  the  child 
was  grown,  it  fell  on  a  day,  that  he  went  out 
to  his  father  to  the  reapers.  And  he  said 
unto  his  father,  My  head  !  my  head  !  And 
he  said  to  a  lad,  Carry  him  to  his  mother. 
And  when  he  had  taken  him,  and  brought 
him  to  his  mother,  he  sat  on  her  knees  till 
noon,  and  then  died.     And  she  went  up,  and 


82  A   PAIN   IN   THE   HEAD. 

laid  him  on  the  bed  of  the  man  of  God,  and 
shut  the  door  upon  him,  and  went  out.  And 
she  called  unto  her  husband,  and  said,  Send 
me,  I  pray  thee,  one  of  the  young  men,  and 
one  of  the  asses,  that  I  may  run  to  the  man 
of  God,  and  come  again.  And  he  said, 
Wherefore  wilt  thou  go  to  him  to-day  ?  it  is 
neither  new  moon  nor  Sabbath.  And  she 
said,  It  shall  be  well.  Then  she  saddled  an 
ass,  and  said  to  her  servant,  Drive,  and  go 
forward;  slack  not  thy  riding  for  me,  except 
I  bid  thee.  So  she  went,  and  came  unto  the 
man  of  God  to  Mount  Carmel.  And  it 
came  to  pass,  when  the  man  of  God  saw 
her  afar  off,  that  he  said  to  Gehazi  his  ser- 
vant, Behold,  yonder  is  that  Shunammite. 
Run  now,  I  pray  thee,  to  meet  her,  and  say 
unto  her,  Is  it  well  with  thee  ?  is  it  well  with 
thy  husband?  is  it  well  with  the  child? 
And  she  answered,  It  is  well.  And  when 
she  came  to  the  man  of  God  to  the  hill,  she 
caught  him  by  the  feet;  but  Gehazi  came 
near  to  thrust  her  away.  And  the  man  of 
God  said,  Let  her  alone;  for  her  soul  is 
vexed  within  her :  and  the  Lord  hath  hid  it 
from  me,  and  hath  not  told  me.     Then  she 


A   PAIN  IN   THE   HEAD.  83 

said,  Did  I  desire  a  son  of  my  lord?  Did  I 
not  say,  Do  not  deceive  me  ?  Then  he  said 
to  Gehazi,  Gird  up  thy  loins,  and  take  my 
staff  in  thy  hand,  and  go  thy  way:  if  thou 
meet  any  man,  salute  him  not ;  and  if  any 
salute  thee,  answer  him  not  again:  and 
lay  my  staff  upon  the  face  of  the  child. 
And  the  mother  of  the  child  said,  As  the 
Lord  liveth,  and  as  thy  soul  liveth,  I  will 
not  leave  thee.  And  he  arose,  and  followed 
her.  And  Gehazi  passed  on  before  them, 
and  laid  the  staff  upon  the  face  of  the  child ; 
but  there  was  neither  voice  nor  hearing. 
Wherefore  he  went  again  to  meet  him,. and 
told  him,  saying,  The  child  is  not  awaked. 
And  when  Elisha  was  come  into  the  house, 
the  child  was  dead,  and  laid  upon  his  bed. 
He  went  in  therefore,  and  shut  the  door 
upon  them  twain,  and  prayed  unto  the  Lord. 
And  he  went  up,  and  lay  upon  the  child, 
and  put  his  mouth  upon  his  mouth,  and  his 
eyes  upon  his  eyes,  and  his  hands  upon  his 
hands :  and  he  stretched  himself  upon  the 
child ;  and  the  flesh  of  the  child  waxed 
warm.  Then  he  returned,  and  walked  in 
the  house   to  and  fro ;    and  went  up,  and 


84  A   PAIN  IN  THE   HEAD. 

stretched  himself  upon  him :  and  the  child 
sneezed  seven  times,  and  the  child  opened 
his  eyes.  And  he  called  Gehazi,  and  said, 
Call  this  Shunammite.  So  he  called  her. 
And  when  she  was  come  in  unto  him,  he 
said,  Take  up  thy  son.  Then  she  went  in, 
and  fell  at  his  feet,  and  bowed  herself  to  the 
ground,  and  took  up  her  son,  and  went  out." 
2  Kings  iv.  8-37. 

I  think  this  is  a  very  good  story.  It  is 
very  well  told.  I  could  not  tell  it  so  well  if 
I  were  to  try  a  week.  It  is  very  fine.  I  will 
tell  you  some  of  my  thoughts  about  it. 

1.  We  all  ought  to  be  glad  to  have  good 
men  come  to  see  us  at  our  own  houses.  Here 
was  a  "great  woman,"  but  she  was  glad  to 
have  the  man  of  God  with  her.  All  great 
folks  are  not  wicked,  though  it  does  spoil 
many  to  be  great.  It  makes  them  proud, 
and  pride  is  a  great  sin.  This  woman  and 
her  husband  too  loved  to  have  Elisha  there. 
Children  should  be  glad  to  have  good  people 
come  to  see  them.  Those  who  love  God,  love 
children,  and  will  pray  for  them. 

2.  People  ought  not  to  make  much  ado 
when    God's   ministers   come   to   see   them. 


A   PAIN   IN   THE   HEAD.  85 

This  woman  gave  the  man  of  God  a  bed,  a 
table,  a  stool,  and  a  candlestick.  She  gave 
him  what  he  needed,  but  she  did  not  show  off 
her  pretty  things.  Elisha  did  not  wish  to 
see  her  finery,  and  she  did  not  care  to 
show  it. 

3.  Nobody  ever  did  a  kind  thing  to  a  good 
man,  but  God  took  notice  of  it  and  was 
pleased  with  it.  God  gave  this  woman  a 
child  for  her  goodness  to  his  servant.  Even 
a  cup  of  cold  water  shall  meet  with  a  reward. 

4.  But  a  child  may  be  sick.  Even  a  child 
that  is  given  by  God  to  us  for  our  kindness 
to  his  people,  may  be  sick.  This  woman's 
child  was  sick.  It  is  said  here  that  he  "  was 
grown."  But  it  does  not  mean  that  he  was 
grown  to  be  a  man,  but  that  he  was  grown 
enough  to  go  to  the  field.  He  was  a  child, 
and  he  was  sick.  Have  not  you  been  sick? 
Did  you  never  see  a  sick  child?  I  have  seen 
many.  Some  are  sick  in  the  head,  some  in 
the  heart,  some  with  fever,  and  some  in  other 
ways.  This  little  boy  cried,  "My  head!  my 
head!"     He  had  a  dreadful  pain  in  the  head. 

5.  A  child  may  be  very  sick.     This  one 


86  A   PAIN   IS   THE   HEAD. 

was.     It  may  be  that  you  have  been  so  sick 
that  you  could  not  sit  up. 

6.  A  child  of  pious  parents  may  be  very 
sick.  Piety  will  keep  us  from  all  pain  in  the 
next  world,  but  not  in  this.  God  sends  pain 
on  the  best  men  in  this  world  to  make  them 
fit  for  heaven. 

7.  A  child  may  die.  I  have  seen  some 
die.  I  have  seen  more  after  they  were  dead. 
Very  many  die  young.  Half  that  are  born 
into  this  world,  are  said  to  die  before  they 
are  seven  years  old.  They  may  be  very 
dear  to  their  parents,  as  this  child  was  to 
his,  but  still  they  may  die.  Death  has 
reigned  even  over  infants  ever  since  Adam 
fell. 

8.  A  child  may  die  suddenly.  This  boy 
was  well  in  the  morning  when  he  went  into 
the  field.  But  at  noon  of  the  same  day  he 
was  dead.  It  is  a  sad  day  when  even  a  child 
dies.  It  fills  a  whole  family  with  sorrow. 
The  mother  of  this  boy  was  sad,  but  she  did 
not  scream  and  howl  as  some  do.  She  acted 
right.  Yet  the  stroke  was  heavy.  The  death 
was  very  sudden. 

9.  She  had  faith  in  God,  and  went  to  the 


A   PAIN   IX   THE   HEAD.  87 

man  of  God.  But  she  did  not  say  any  foolish 
thing.  She  argued,  she  pleaded,  she  gained 
her  point.  God,  who  gave  her  the  child  at 
first,  brought  him  to  life  again.  God  kills 
and  makes  alive. 

You  too  may  be  sick.  If  you  should  be, 
do  not  fret  and  be  cross.  Be  sweet.  Take 
your  medicine  when  it  is  given  you.  Be 
patient.  Do  not  make  the  worst  of  every 
thing.  Be  thankful  to  God  for  what  is  still 
left  you.  You  have  a  good  doctor,  a  good 
nurse,  a  good  bed,  and  many  good  things. 
Do  not  scold  at  servants  when  they  are  doing 
their  best.  To  be  sick  is  a  bad  thing.  But  to 
be  sick  and  cross  too,  is  still  worse.  "When 
sick,  as  when  well,  pray  to  God.  Ask  others 
to  pray  for  you.  If  you  can,  read  or  hear 
some  of  the  word  of  God.  Give  your  heart 
to  Christ.  Ask  him  to  give  you  a  new  heart. 
Pray  God  to  make  you  what  you  ought  to  be. 
Ask  him  to  help  you  to  say,  "Not  my  will, 
but  thine  be  done,  0  God."  t  If  you  have 
been  sick,  but  are  now  well,  do  not  soon 
forget  it.  Thank  God  for  all  the  health  you 
have.     Live  to  his  honour. 

You  may  die,  and  that  very  soon.     I  do 


88  A   CHAPTER   OF   SAYINGS. 

not  know  that  you  will,  but  I  am  sure  you 
may.  Are  you  ready?  Have  you  made 
peace  with  God?  Have  you  taken  Jesus 
Christ  for  all  and  in  all?  Have  you  been 
born  again  ?  No  one  can  be  saved  without  a 
change  of  heart.  It  is  a  dreadful  thing  to 
die  in  sin.  Even  if  you  love  God,  you  may 
die,  but  then  you  will  go  to  heaven.  There 
are  many  in  heaven  younger  than  you  are. 

Babes  thither  caught  from  womb  and  breast, 
Claim  right  to  sing  above  the  rest, 
Because  they  found  the  happy  shore, 
They  never  saw  nor  sought  before. 

If  babes  may  be  saved,  so  may  you.  You 
are  old  enough  to  seek  God.  You  ought  to 
seek  him  now.  Then,  if  you  die,  you  will  be 
saved. 


A  CHAPTER  OF  SAYINGS. 

Even  a  child  is  known  by  his  doings. 
Better  is  a  poor  and  wise  child,  than  an 
old  and  foolish  king. 

Childhood  and  youth  are  vanity. 


A   CHAPTER    OF    SAYIXGS.  89 

Suffer  little  children,  and  forbid  them  not, 
to  come  unto  me;  for  of  such  is  the  kingdom 
of  heaven. 

The  flower  of  youth  is  never  so  beautiful 
as  when,  like  the  heliotrope,  it  bends  and 
bows  its  head  to  the  Sun  of  Righteousness. 

Bad  boys  bid  fair  to  be  bad  men. 

He,  who  loves  danger,  shall  perish  therein. 

A  clear  conscience  is  the  best  defence. 

He,  that  hath  ears  to  hear,  let  him  hear. 

Very  few  know  when  and  how  to  say,  Yes, 
and  No, 

Tell  me  with  whom  you  go,  and  I  will  tell 
you  who  you  are. 

A  liar  ought  to  have  a  good  memory. 

Love  not  sleep  lest  thou  come  to  poverty. 

Reading  makes  a  learned  man,  writing  a 
correct  man,  speaking  a  ready  man,  and 
thinking  a  great  man. 

Trust  in  the  Lord  with  all  thine  heart. 

A  fool  will  utter  all  his  mind. 

"We  have  two  eyes  and  two  ears,  but  only 
one  tongue.  See  and  hear  much,  and  speak 
little. 

We  have  two  hands  and  two  feet,  but  only 
one  soul.     Then  take  care  of  that. 


90  A   CHAPTER   OF   SAYINGS. 

A  wise  son  maketh  a  glad  father. 

It  is  as  sport  to  a  fool  to  do  mischief. 

He,  who  hates  his  book,  loves  the  rod. 

He,  who  hates  his  brother,  is  a  murderer. 

The  way  of  a  fool  is  right  in  his  own  eyes. 

The  fear  of  the  Lord  is  the  beginning  of 
wisdom. 

Leave  off  strife  before  you  begin  it. 

He,  who  seeks  revenge,  keeps  his  wounds 
always  bleeding. 

Anger  resteth  in  the  bosom  of  fools. 

Pride  leads  to  prison. 

Great  men  have  little  to  hope  for,  and 
much  to  fear. 

There  is  no  man  that  sinneth  not. 

God  forbid  that  I  should  glory  save  in  the 
cross  of  our  Saviour,  Jesus  Christ. 

A  rolling  stone  gathers  no  moss. 

Never  set  the  house  on  fire,  that  you  may 
roast  an  egg. 

Let  not  thy  heart  envy  sinners. 

He,  who  does  as  well  as  he  knows  how, 
will  know  more. 

Those,  who  are  fond  of  strong  drink,  love 
red  eyes. 


A   CHAPTER   OF   SAYINGS.  91 

Bats,  owls,  and  evil  thoughts,  love  the  twi- 
light. 

To  be  without  a  new  heart,  is  to  hate  God. 

It  would  be  better  not  to  be  born,  than  not 
to  be  born  again. 

He  who  does  not  love  truth,  will  soon  not 
know  it. 

The  heaven  of  heavens  cannot  contain 
God. 

No  man  knows  how  deep  the  sea  is. 

All  human  faces  are  alike,  or  we  could  not 
tell  a  man  from  a  brute. 

No  two  faces  are  quite  alike,  or  we  could 
not  tell  one  from  another. 

No  one  wants  snow  in  summer. 

There  is  a  time  for  all  things. 

Thine  own  friend,  and  thy  father's  friend, 
forsake  not. 

He,  that  trusteth  in  his  own  heart,  is  a 
fool. 

It  is  more  blessed  to  give  than  to  receive. 

The  Lord  is  my  Shepherd,  I  shall  not 
want. 

As  a  dog  who  has  no  master,  so  is  a  man 
who  has  no  wisdom. 

A  penny  saved  is  two-pence  gained. 


92  A   CHAPTER   OF   SAYINGS. 

Abhor  that  which  is  evil. 

Cleave  to  that  which  is  good. 

Seekest  thou  great  things?  Seek  them 
not. 

A  life  of  ease  is  a  life  of  sin. 

Hunger  is  the  best  sauce,  and  labour 
makes  all  meats  good. 

He,  who  never  unbends  his  bow,  will  not 
be  able  to  shoot  well. 

What  shall  it  profit  a  man  if  he  gain  the 
whole  world  and  lose  his  own  soul  ? 

No  man  sinks  to  the  lowest  vices  in  a  day. 

He,  who  lies  down  wise,  will  not  awake  a 
fool. 

Every  narrow  way  is  not  the  way  to  hea- 
ven. 

Some  men  are  poor  here,  and  poorer  here- 
after. 

Cowards  are  commonly  cruel. 

The  man  who  shall  be  President  of  the 
United  States  in  the  year  1899,  is  now 
probably  a  poor  boy,  struggling  with  hard- 
ships, but  mastering  them. 

Great  men  are  not  always  wise. 

No  one  was  ever  a  loser  by  doing  his  duty 
to  his  parents. 


A   CHAPTER    OF    SAYINGS.  93 

A  good  name  is  better  than  great  riches. 

Two  green  sticks  and  a  dry  one  will  make 
a  fire. 

To  love  one's  self  more  than  God,  is  the 
sin  of  all  who  have  not  been  born  again. 

The  ox  knows  his  owner.  Do  you  know 
yours  ? 

Those  who  are  vain  of  fine  dress  are  trying 
to  be  peacocks. 

Seek  the  Lord  while  he  may  be  found. 

Cunning  is  crooked  wisdom. 

A  cock  is  better  pleased  with  a  grain  of 
corn  than  a  gem. 

Some  seem  so  good  that  they  are  good  for 
nothing. 

A  double-minded  man  is  unstable  in  all 
his  ways. 

Envy  has  no  holidays. 

Thorns  and  briers  prick  and  scratch,  be- 
cause that  is  all  they  can  do. 

He  who  tells  lies  is  brave  towards  God, 
and  a  coward  towards  men. 

Many  friends  are  like  rats  who  forsake  a 
sinking  ship. 

Judge  not,  that  ye  be  not  judged. 


94  A   CHAPTER   OF   SAYINGS. 

More  men  worship  the  rising  than  the  set- 
ting sun. 

He,  who  has  a  friend,  bears  only  half  his 
own  griefs. 

Wounds  cannot  be  cured  without  search- 
ing. 

To  say  all  is  well  is  easy ;  to  make  all  well 
is  hard. 

A  life  of  piety  is  the  only  truly  happy 
life. 

It  never  troubles  a  wolf  how  many  sheep 
there  are. 

Fear  God  and  keep  his  commandments; 
for  this  is  the  whole  duty  of  man. 

Some  books  are  to  be  tasted,  others  to  be 
swallowed,  and  some  few  to  be  chewed  and 
digested. 

As  a  dove  among  hawks,  so  is  a  good  child 
among  the  bad. 

Possess  your  souls  in  patience. 

There  is  no  worse  disease  than  bone  in  the 
heart. 

God  does  most  for  kings;  but  kings  do 
least  for  God. 

The  power  of  thought  chiefly  points  out  a 
man  from  a  brute. 


A   CHAPTER    OF    SAYIXGS.  95 

The  habit  of  thought  chiefly  points  out  a 
wise  man  from  a  fool. 

Those  "who  are  men  at  twelve,  will  ever 
after  be  boys. 

He,  who  lives  to  learn,  will  learn  to  live. 

The  more  you  feed  a  calf,  the  bigger  calf 
it  is. 

Seek  first  the  kingdom  of  God. 

An  idle  boy  will  make  a  mean  old  man. 

If  you  cannot  trust  your  mother,  it  is 
madness  to  trust  any  one  else. 

The  kite  cannot  fly  up  except  as  it  is  held 
down. 

He,  that  is  down,  needs  fear  no  fall. 

There  is  a  bottom  to  every  pit  but  the  pit 
of  wo'e. 

Heaven  is  no  hive  for  drones. 

Hell  is  the  truth  seen  too  late. 

He  that  knoweth  to  do  good,  and  doeth  it 
not,  to  him  it  is  sin. 

A  good  conscience  is  good  company. 

He  is  a  free  man  who  serves  God. 


96 


THEY  WERE  BOTH  WRONG. 

John  was  a  poor  boy.  He  seldom  had 
any  money.  Sometimes  he  did  not  have  a 
cent  for  a  year.  He  one  day  met  Charles, 
who  had  a  knife.  It  was  not  worth  much, 
but  Charles  praised  it  a  great  deal.  At  last 
he  said,  "  John,  you  may  have  this  knife  for 
twelve  and  a  half  cents.  You  may  pay  me 
when  you  can.  I  will  wait  three  months 
with  you."  John  thought  three  months  wTas 
a  long  time,  and  so  he  took  the  knife.  But 
he  got  no  money  in  three  months,  nor  in 
four.  Charles  often  asked  him  to  pay,  but 
John  always  said  he  had  no  money.  '  This 
was  true.  But  John  did  not  say  it  in  a 
very  pleasant  way.  One  day  Charles  said, 
"You  must  pay  me."  John  said,  "I  can- 
not," and  then  added  a  few  words  as  if  he 
might  never  pay.  Charles  was  strong  and 
threw  John  down,  and  beat  him,  and  tore 
his  coat.  John  then  said  he  would  pay 
soon.  But  he  had  no  money,  and  no  way  of 
getting  any.  And  Charles  would  not  take 
back  the  knife.     So  they  had  a  fight  when- 


THEY   WERE   BOTH   WROXG.  97 

ever  they  met,  and  John  would  make  a  new 
promise!  After  a  long  time,  John  got  the 
money  and  paid  it.  Then  he  and  Charles 
did  not  fight  any  more,  but  were  good 
friends.  Now  I  will  tell  you  what  I  think  of 
this  matter. 

1.  I  think  Charles  did  wrong  in  praising 
his  own  knife  so  much.  He  made  it  seem  a 
great  thing  in  John's  eyes.  He  did  not  tell 
any  very  great  lie  about  it,  but  he  said  too 
much  in  praise  of  it. 

2.  Charles  did  wrong  in  selling  it  to  John, 
when  he  knew  John  was  poor,  and  hardly 
had  any  way  of  getting  money.  He  knew 
he  would  get  John  into  trouble.  He  was 
older  than  John,  and  ought  not  to  have  led 
him  into  the  bargain. 

3.  Charles  did  wrong  in  not  taking  back 
the  knife,  when  it  was  all  John  had  to  give. 
'Twas  not  kind  in  him  to  refuse  it.  I  think 
he  had  not  learned  those  pretty  lines : 

"  What  mercy  I  to  others  show, 
That  mercy  show  to  me." 

Christ  said,  "Blessed  are  the  merciful,  for 
they  shall  obtain  mercy."      God  has  said, 
9* 


1)8  THEY  WERE   BOTH   WRONG. 

"  He  shall  have  judgment  without  mercy, 
that  hath  showed  no  mercy."  If  is  very 
wrong  to  urge  people  to  buy  things,  and 
then  to  vex  them  for  not  paying  us. 

4.  Charles  did  wrong  in  fighting  John 
about  it.  He  was  strong,  and  fought  him 
hard.  Even  little  boys  hurt  each  other 
when  they  fight.  It  is  very  wicked  to  put 
boys  to  fighting.  We  should  all  try  to  do 
good  and  not  harm  to  each  other. 

"  But  man,  whose  heaven-erected  face, 

The  smiles  of  love  adorn ; 
Man's  inhumanity  to  man, 

Makes  countless  thousands  mourn." 

To  be  hard  with  one  who  owes  us  is  very 
wicked.  How  could  such  an  one  pray, 
"Forgive  us  our  debts  as  we  forgive  our 
debtors  ?"  Jesus  Christ  said,  "Therefore  is 
the  kingdom  of  heaven  likened  unto  a  cer- 
tain king  which  would  take  account  of  his 
servants.  And  when  he  began  to  reckon, 
one  was  brought  unto  him  which  owed  ten 
thousand  talents.  But  forasmuch  as  he  had 
not  to  pay,  his  lord  commanded  him  to  be 
sold,  and  his  wife  and  children,  and  all  that 
he  had,  and  payment  to  be  made.     The  ser- 


THEY   WERE   BOTH   WRONG.  99 

vant  therefore  fell  down,  and  worshipped 
him,  saying,  Lord,  have  patience  with  me, 
and  I  will  pay  thee  all.  Then  the  lord  of 
that  servant  was  moved  with  compassion, 
and  loosed  him,  and  forgave  him  the  debt. 
But  the  same  servant  went  out,  and  found 
one  of  his  fellow-servants,  which  owed  him 
an  hundred  pence:  and  he  laid  hands  on 
him,  and  took  him  by  the  throat,  saying, 
Pay  me  that  thou  owest.  And  his  fellow- 
servant  fell  down  at  his  feet,  and  besought 
him,  saying,  Have  patience  with  me,  and  I 
will  pay  thee  all.  And  he  would  not :  but 
went  and  cast  him  into  prison,  till  he  should 
pay  the  debt.  So  when  his  fellow-servants 
saw  what  was  done,  they  were  very  sorry, 
and  came  and  told  unto  their  lord  all  that 
was  done.  Then  his  lord,  after  that  he  had 
called  him,  said  unto  him,  0  thou  wicked 
servant,  I  forgave  thee  all  that  debt,  because 
thou  desiredst  me:  shouldst  thou  not  also 
have  had  compassion  on  thy  fellow-servant, 
even  as  I  have  had  pity  on  thee  ?  And  his 
lord  was  wroth,  and  delivered  him  to  the  tor- 
mentors, till  he  should  pay  all  that  was  due 
unto  him.     So  likewise  shall  my  heavenly 


100  THEY  WERE   BOTH   WRONG. 

Father  do  also  unto  you,  if  ye  from  your 
hearts   forgive    not    every  one   his    brother 
their  trespasses."    Matt,  xviii.  23-35. 
But  John  was  to  blame  too. 

1.  He  ought  not  to  have  bought  the  knife. 
He  did  not  really  need  it.  Any  thing  is 
dear  to  us  at  any  price  if  we  do  not  need  it. 
John  had  no  right  to  take  Charles's  knife 
without  seeing  some  clear  way  of  paying  for 
it.  It  is  not  honest  to  buy,  unless  we  know 
at  the  time  how  we  can  pay.  When  Charles 
praised  the  knife,  John  should  have  said,  "  I 
have  no  money,  and  no  way  of  getting  it 
that  I  know  of.  I  will  not  take  it."  "  Owe 
no  man  any  thing."  "  The  rich  ruleth  over 
the  poor,  and  the  borrower  is  servant  to  the 
lender."  Pay-day  and  the  day  of  death  will 
be  sure  to  come. 

2.  When  Charles  urged  John  to  pay,  John 
should  not  have  used  rough  words.  He  should 
have  been  mild  and  kind.  He  should  not  have 
spoken  as  if  he  meant  never  to  pay.  "  Once 
a  debt  always  a  debt  till  it  is  paid,"  is  a  good 
rule. 

3.  John  ought  not  to  have  made  so  many 
promises  when  he  knew  not  whether  he  could 


THEY   WERE   BOTH   WRONG.  101 

keep  them.  It  was  a  kind  of  lying.  Every 
kind  of  lie  defiles  the  conscience,  and  dis- 
pleases God. 

But  both  the  boys  did  right  in  being  good 
friends  after  the  thing  was  settled.  John  did 
not  hate  Charles,  and  Charles  never  cast  it 
up  to  John  that  he  was  poor,  or  had  not  paid 
him  sooner.  It  is  very  bad  to  bear  grudges. 
To  fight  is  very  bad.  But  to  bear  old  hatred 
is  even  worse.  John  and  Charles  are  old  men 
now,  and  have  large  families,  but  they  have 
been  very  friendly  ever  since.  But  Charles 
has  never  become  a  Christian.  He  loves 
money  very  much.  It  seems  to  grow  on 
him.  "  The  love  of  money  is  the  root  of  all 
evil."  I  fear  it  will  be  so  with  many.  If 
you  love  money  you  cannot  love  God.  The 
Bible  says,  "If  any  man  love  the  world,  the 
love  of  the  Father  is  not  in  him/'  John  is 
very  much  a  man  of  his  word.  He  is  very 
careful  not  to  make  any  more  foolish  bar- 
gains. I  hope  he  loves  God.  He  reads  the 
Bible,  and  prays  with  his  family.  He  keeps 
his  word  now,  but  he  is  very  careful  how  he 
makes  promises. 


102 


THE  RIBBON  ROOM. 

Katy's  mother  was  sickly,  but  she  was 
pious,  and  brought  up  her  children  well. 
Katy  was  a  good  child,  and  loved  her  mother, 
and  did  all  she  could  to  help  her.  .  Katy  was 
a  great  hand  at  sweeping  the  house,  and 
putting  things  nice.  When  she  was  about 
eleven  years  old,  a  man  came  to  her  father's 
with  some  trunks  full  of  ribbons.  There  he 
got  a  room,  put  up  some  shelves,  and  opened 
his  ribbons.  He  wished  to  sell  them  to  the 
people  of  the  town.  He  kept  the  room  open 
four  or  five  hours  every  day.  He  got  Katy 
to  dust  and  sweep  the  room  for  him,  and  told 
her  he  would  pay  her  for  it.  He  knew  she 
was  a  good  girl,  and  he  gave  her  the  key  to 
go  in  alone.  But  one  day  after  she  had  swept 
the  room  and  made  all  nice,  she  stopped  a 
moment  to  look  at  the  things.  All  at  once 
the  ribbons  looked  so  pretty ;  she  thought 
she  had  never  seen  any  thing  so  fine  before. 
One  bolt  of  ribbon  after  another  filled  her 
eye.  At  last  Satan  put  the  thought  into  her 
mind,  to  take  some  of  them.    She  looked  for  a 


THE   RIBBON   ROOM.  108 

moment  longer,  and  thought  of  these  words, 
"  Thou  shalt  not  steal."  She  was  full  of  fear, 
fled  from  the  room,  locked  the  door,  went 
alone  and  thanked  God  for  not  letting  her 
steal.  She  also  asked  God  to  keep  her  in  all 
time  to  come.  She  did  not  tell  any  one  of 
this  great  trial  till  she  was  an  old  lady.  But 
after  that  day,  she  always  got  her  mother  to 
go  with  her  into  the  ribbon  room,  when  she 
went  to  fix  it.  If  she  had  stolen,  it  would  no 
doubt  have  been  found  out.  People  would 
always  have  called  her  thief.  They  would 
not  have  thought  of  her  age,  nor  the  charms 
which  ribbons  have  to  a  little  child. 

But  what  could  she  have  done  with  them, 
if  she  had  taken  them  ?  She  could  not  have 
worn  them,  for  that  would  have  been  to  tell 
she  was  a  thief.  Xor  could  she  have  sold 
them,  or  given  them  away,  for  then  people 
would  have  asked,  Where  did  you  get  them  ? 
She  could  not  have  hid  them,  for  her  mother 
no  doubt  often  looked  into  her  drawers. 
Thieves  often  steal  what  they  have  no  use 
for.  I  have  known  them  to  steal  old  iron. 
They  have  more  trouble  in  hiding  stolen 
things,  than  they  are  worth.     But  the  worst 


104  THE   RIBBON    ROOM. 

thing  in  stealing,  is  that  it  is  wicked.  God 
hates  all  theft.  He  never  can  love  those 
who  love  the  price  of  sin.  Thieves  and  liars, 
if  they  do  not  repent  and  turn  to  God,  must 
all  perish.  Hell  is  a  dreadful  place.  All 
the  vile  will  be  there.  There  is  no  place  in 
this  world  as  bad  as  hell  is.  There  God 
pours  the  vials  of  his  wrath  on  the  wicked, 
and  they  weep,  and  howl,  and  gnash  their 
teeth  always. 

I  wish  here  to  say  a  few  things  more. 

1.  It  is  not  right  to  put  a  child  in  any 
place  where  it  will  be  too  much  tried.  Peo- 
ple may  think  a  child  better  than  it  is.  We 
are  all  poor  creatures,  and  easily  fall  into 
sin.  Both  the  mind  and  principles  of  a 
child  are  wTeak.  If  he  does  not  fall  into  sin, 
he  may  still  suffer  a  great  deal  in  his  mind. 

2.  Children  should  learn  to  pray.  Who, 
more  than  a  child,  needs  to  cry  daily, 
"Lead  us  not  into  temptation ?"  Every 
child  should  offer  that  prayer  every  day. 
God  alone  can  keep  any  one  from  doing  the 
worst  things.  Do  you  ask  God  to  keep 
you  ?     He  alone  is  able  to  do  it. 

3.  When  tempted,  let  us  try  to  find  a  way 


THE    RIBBON    ROOM.  105 

of  escape.  Katy  fled  from  danger,  and 
Satan  fled  from  her.  It  was  when  Eve  "saw 
that  the  tree  was  good  for  food,  and  that  it 
was  pleasant  to  the  eyes,  that  she  took  of 
the  fruit  and  did  eat."  Never  look  at  things 
forbidden.  Never  listen  to  things  forbidden. 
Never  smell  things  forbidden.  "  Touch 
not,  taste  not,  handle  not,"  is  the  Bible  rule. 

4.  Katy  was  right  in  thanking  God  for 
not  letting  her  steal.  If  we  have  been  kept 
from  doing  the  worst  things,  we  have  been 
kept  by  God.  If  he  be  not  a  wall  of  fire 
round  about  us,  we  shall  surely  fall.  "Hold 
thou  me  up,  and  I  shall  be  safe." 

5.  It  is  always  best  to  do  right.  It  gives 
us  pleasure  as  often  as  we  think  of  it.  It 
gives  us  such  peace  of  mind.  If  you  can 
always  do  right,  you  need  not  fear.  God 
will  take  care  of  you.  He  took  care  of 
Katy.  AYhen  the  man  paid  her,  she  felt  she 
had  a  right  to  the  money.  She  was  always 
glad  that  she  had  been  able  to  do  right. 


10 


106 


THE  LOST  POCKET-BOOK. 

Richakd  and  Francis  were  born  in  New 
England,  but  their  parents  went  to  live  in 
the  far  West.  There  they  kept  up  their 
good  ways.  They  did  not  forget  God.  They 
read  his  word,  kept  his  Sabbaths,  and  prayed 
night  and  morning.  Both  these  parents  did 
all  they  could  to  teach  their  boys  the  ways 
of  God. 

One  day  the  boys  were  coming  from  school, 
and  met  two  men  riding.  The  boys  stopped 
and  made  a  polite  bow  to  the  strangers. 
One  of  the  men  said  a  kind  word  to  them. 
The  other  said,  "Did  you  get  whipped  to- 
day?" and  then  he  laughed.  Richard  said 
nothing  because  he  saw  the  man  was  rude. 
But  Francis  said,  "No,  sir;"  so  they  passed 
on.  The  boys  had  not  gone  far  till  they 
found  some  papers  and  an  open  pocket-book 
in  the  road.  They  took  them  up,  and  soon 
were  at  home.  They  told  their  mother  all 
that  had  passed.  She  looked  at  the  papers, 
and  saw  that  one  name  was  on  them  all.  She 
also  saw   in    the  pocket-book  two   rolls   of 


THE   LOST   POCKET-BOOK.  107 

money.  Just  then  her  husband  came  m. 
He  counted  the  money  and  found  it  to  be 
near  two  hundred  dollars.  He  heard  all  the 
facts  in  the  case,  and  said  he  was  sorry  any 
one  had  lost  the  money,  Francis  said,  "  the 
man  who  lost  it  must  feel  very  badly." 

Just  then  a  man  was  going  by.  By  him 
word  was  sent  that  some  money  had  been 
found.  He  told  it  to  all,  along  the  road. 
About  dark,  he  came  to  a  tavern,  where  the 
two  men,  who  had  met  the  boys,  had  stopped. 
He  there  told  of  the  money.  Soon  the  man, 
who  had  spoken  rudely  to  the  boys,  said,  "  I 
have  lost  my  money,  and  papers,  and  pocket- 
book.  And  I  was  just  going  to  pay  for  my 
land." 

He  was  about  to  start  back;  but  it  was 
dark,  and  they  told  him  his  money  was  safe 
at  that  house.  So  he  went  to  bed,  but  did 
not  sleep  much.  He  was  up  very  early,  and 
set  off  to  go  back  eight  miles.  He  got  there 
soon  after  the  sun  rose,  and  told  his  errand. 
He  also  told  his  name,  and  said  what  money 
and  papers  he  had  lost.  So  it  was  clear  that 
he  was  the  owner,  and  all  was  promptly  given 
to  him.     He  was  very  glad. 


108  THE   LOST   POCKET-BOOK. 

He  then  said  he  would  pay  them  for  find- 
ing and  keeping  it,  and  held  out  ten  dollars 
to  the  father  of  the  boys.  But  he  would  not 
have  it.  He  then  offered  five  dollars  to  each 
of  the  boys.  This  was  much  money  for 
them.  But  they  would  not  have  it.  At  this 
the  man  looked  as  if  he  were  hurt,  and  said, 
"  This  is  very  strange."  But  the  father 
said,  "We  have  only  done  our  duty.  We 
are  poor,  but  we  cannot  lose  our  good  name." 
"  Then,"  said  the  man,  "  I  have  done  very 
wrong.  I  spoke  rudely  to  your  boys,  when 
I  met  them  yesterday.  I  am  very  sorry." 
He  seemed  to  feel  what  he  said. 

In  a  few  minutes  he  left  the  house.  He 
told  every  one  how  well  he  had  been  treated. 
He  said  those  boys  would  not  come  to  a  bad 
end,  and  that  he  never  saw  such  people. 
This  is  my  story. 

Now,  I  hope  you  will  make  up  your  mind 
to  these  things,  viz : 

1.  Never  be  rude  to  any  one,  not  even  to 
a  little  boy,  or  a  stranger.  Treat  every  one 
kindly.  You  may  soon  need  their  good 
will. 

2.  If  you  ever  find  any  thing,  give  early 


EDWIN   AND    HIS    TEACHER.  109 

notice  of  it.  Let  the  owner  know  where 
he  can  get  it,  if  he  will  prove  that  it  is  his. 
If  you  know  who  he  is,  send  him  word.  If 
you  do  not  know  who  he  is,  give  notice  to  all 
the  public.     And  restore  it  without  reward. 


EDWIN  AND  HIS  TEACHER. 

Edwin  was  not  a  very  bad  boy.  He  was 
not  easily  made  angry.  He  would  bear  a 
great  deal  sometimes.  He  loved  to  laugh. 
With  some  of  his  playmates  he  never  had  a 
cross  word.  Yet  he  was  in  no  wise  better 
than  he  ought  to  have  been.  In  some  things 
he  came  far  short.  When  he  saw  one  wrong 
him,  and  take  no  step  towards  doing  him 
justice,  his  heart  was  not  meek.  It  was,  in 
truth,  frightful  to  see  him  angry.  I  once  saw 
him,  when  I  thought  he  would  have  killed  a 
boy.  I  still  think  he  would,  had  not  one 
caught  his  arm.  He  was  about  to  strike  with 
the  heavy  leg  of  a  bench.  Yet  he  was  almost 
always  very  friendly.  The  boys  loved  him. 
He  would  give  away  his  last  apple  or  almond. 
He  was  smart  and  gay,  and  full  of  life.  Some 
10* 


110  EDWIN   AND   HIS   TEACHER. 

of  his  teachers  still  live  to  praise  him.  But 
one  of  his  teachers,  who  is  now  dead,  did  not 
like  him.  He  was  a  good  scholar,  and  made 
some  good  scholars.  But  he  was  passionate 
and  cruel.  He  would  both  praise  and  punish 
without  reason.  He  belonged  to  one  church, 
and  Edwin's  parents  to  another.  This,  it 
was  thought,  made  him  not  feel  so  kindly  to 
Edwin.  His  temper  was  quick.  He  loved 
and  hated  without  cause.  He  would  often 
fret.  He  would  whip  in  spite.  I  have  heard 
him  praise  the  bad  as  much  as  the  good.  He 
was  a  member  of  a  church,  and  at  times  very 
zealous.  It  is  no  part  of  my  business  to 
judge  him.  He  was  not  my  servant.  But  he 
had  some  ugly  ways.  I  have  seen  some  men, 
who  seemed  to  have  grace  enough  for  two 
common  men,  but  not  half  enough  for  them- 
selves. Even  when  this  teacher  did  right,  he 
often  did  it  in  an  ugly  way.  He  did  not  seem 
to  think  of  those  words  of  Scripture,  "  Let 
not  your  good  be  evil  spoken  of."  His 
prayers  were  long  and  loud.  Yet  he  may 
have  been  a  truly  good  man. 

When  he  found  fault,  it  was  in  harsh  words. 
He  was  not  kind  and  gentle.  When  he  chided,, 


EDWIN   AND    HIS   TEACHER.  Ill 

le  railed  and  stormed.  Yet  I  have  often 
thought  he  was  sorry  for  these  things.  Per- 
haps he  was.  God  knows.  He  was  often 
rough  towards  Edwin.  He  would  laugh  at 
him  and  hurt  his  feelings.  He  struck  him 
three  or  four  times  very  hard,  and  for  no 
good  cause.  Once  he  whipped  him  cruelly. 
Edwin  was  manly,  and  did  not  easily  weep. 
This  made  his  teacher  seem  to  dislike  him. 
At  least  we  thought  so.  For  a  while  Edwin 
carried  him  apples,  but  at  last  he  brought  no 
more.  Yet  he  did  not  tell  his  parents  about 
the  way  he  was  treated,  until  the  school  was 
broken  up. 

At  the  end  of  three  months,  the  teacher 
went  away  from  that  place  to  one  nearly  a 
hundred  miles  off.  Edwin  and  many  others 
were  glad  he  was  gone.  He  may  have  done 
better  there.  I  hope  he  did.  Edwin  still 
thought  of  him,  but  he  did  not  forgive  him. 
He  hated  not  only  his  ways,  but  his  person  too. 
He  that  hates  another  is  a  murderer.  Edwin 
•ought  to  have  let  it  pass  away  from  his  mind. 
He  had  a  spite  against  his  old  teacher.  But 
-what  could  he  do?  He  was  but  a  child,  and 
the  man  was  far  away.     His  thoughts  were 


112  EDWIN   AND    HIS   TEACHER. 

busy.  At  last  he  said  to  himself:  "I  will 
write  him  a  letter,  tell  him  that  I  am  his 
friend,  and  that  there  are  bad  stories  about 
him,  and  that  he  must  come  and  see  about 
them ;  but  I  will  not  put  my  own  name  to  it, 
and  I  will  date  it  at  the  place  where  my 
teacher  lived  some  years  ago."  So  he  wrote 
the  letter  in  his  best  hand,  and  spelt  every  word 
as  well  as  if  he  had  been  a  man.  He  put  it 
in  a  cover,  and  directed  it  to  the  postmaster 
of  the  town  where  it  was  dated,  asking  him 
to  forward  it.  But  he  was  not  easy  when  he 
was  doing  all  this.  His  heart  smote  him.  He 
trembled  as  he  went  to  the  post-office.  As 
soon  as  he  dropped  the  letter  into  the  box,  he 
ran  till  he  got  around  the  corner.  Of  course 
he  did  not  pay  the  postage.  He  had  hardly 
done  this,  when  he  wished  he  had  not  done  it. 
He  was  afraid  he  would  be  found  out. 

His  fears  were  just.  His  old  teacher  knew 
his  hand.  For  some  cause  he  had  kept  a  copy- 
book of  each  of  his  scholars.  He  thus  and 
from  memory  knew  Edwin's  writing.  The 
letter  and  cover,  and  all  were  sent  to  a  friend 
of  the  teacher  living  where  Edwin  lived.  The 
teacher  told  his  friend  who  had  written  it,  as 


EDWIN   AND    HIS    TEACHER.  113 

he  thought.  This  friend  told  Edwin,  and 
showed  him  the  letter.  Edwin  could  not 
deny  his  guilt.  He  was  in  a  world  of  trou- 
bles. He  did  not  know  what  the  law  was, 
and  feared  he  might  be  put  in  jail.  Shame 
and  fear  both  held  him  back  from  telling  his 
father,  so  as  to  get  good  advice.  He  now 
began  to  reap  the  fruit  of  his  sin.  He  did 
not  sleep  well.  He  had  bad  dreams.  He 
could  not  fix  his  mind  on  his  book.  He  did 
not  seem  to  care  for  his  food.  He  was  too 
proud  yet  to  pray  about  it.  At  one  time  he 
told  the  man  who  had  the  letter,  that  he  had 
sent  it  just  out  of  fun.  But  when  asked 
wherein  was  the  fun,  he  could  not  tell.  Edwin 
once  said  he  loved  his  old  teacher  very  much, 
but  that  was  not  so,  and  he  knew  it.  When 
asked  about  the  bad  rumours  at  the  town 
where  the  letter  was  dated,  he  had  to  say, 
that  he  knew  none,  and  had  heard  none. 

At  last  the  man  who  had  the  letter  said : 
"You  are  but  a  child."  (Edwin  was  not  yet 
eleven  years  old.)  "I  hope  you  are  sorry 
for  what  you  have  done.  I  will  not  tell  any 
one,  if  you  will  do  better.  I  will  stop  the 
matter  here."     The  tears  came  in  Edwin's 


114  EDWIN    AND   HIS   TEACHER. 

eyes,  and  he  thanked  the  man.  He  also 
said  he  would  never  do  such  a  thing  again. 
I  think  he  has  kept  his  word.  Edwin  sel- 
dom had  much  money,  but  he  had  fifty  cents 
at  this  time,  and  he  laid  that  down  saying, 
"this  will  pay  all  the  postages."  The  man 
said,  "I  do  not  want  it."  But  Edwin  said, 
"You  must  keep  it;"  and  he  went  away, 
leaving  it  on  the  table.  It  just  paid  the 
whole  amount,  including  one  letter  yet  to  be 
written. 

Edwin  now  began  to  feel  better.  He  was 
serious,  but  he  was  happy.  He  saw  this  bad 
affair  brought  to  an  end.  And  he  had  done 
right  in  paying  the  money  which  others  had 
paid  for  his  wrong.  Postage  was  then  more 
than  double  what  it  is  now.  I  will  now  tell 
you  what  I  think  of  these  things.  I  will 
speak  first  of  the  teacher. 

1.  Whether  he  was  a  good  man,  I  do  not 
know.  It  is  a  sad  thing  that  some  men  seem 
good  one  hour,  and  bad  the  next.  Our  busi- 
ness is  not  to  judge  them,  but  to  take  good 
heed  not  to  be  like  them. 

2.  Those  are  poor  members  of  any  church 
of  Christ,  who  have  bad  feelings  to  members 


EDWIN   AND   HIS   TEACHER.  115 

of  other  churches.  It  is  sad  to  see  how  a 
mere  name  sways  some  people.  I  should  not 
like  to  be  found  hating  any  good  man  of  any 
name,  or  of  no  name. 

3.  This  man  was  not  fit  to  be  a  teacher. 
He  had  not  rule  enough  over  himself  to  fit 
him  to  rule  others.  He  showed  partiality 
also.  The  people  did  right  in  keeping  him 
but  one  quarter. 

But  I  must  say  much  about  Edwin. 

1.  Though  he  had  some  very  good  traits, 
yet  he  had  some  great  faults.  He  was  com- 
monly frank  and  open,  yet  you  have  seen 
how  sly  and  cunning  he  tried  to  be.  He 
was  generous,  and  yet  he  was  spiteful.  He 
bore  malice  for  a  long  time,  at  least  in  this 
one  case.  He  was  commonly  friendly,  but 
it  was  a  wonder  that  he  did  not  kill  a  boy, 
when  he  was  not  ten  years  old.  I  do  not 
mean  to  say  that  all  anger  is  sinful.  The 
Bible  says,  "Be  ye  angry  and  sin  not.,r 
But  it  also  says,  "Let  not  the  sun  go  down 
upon  your  wrath."  Many  suns  went  down 
on  Edwin's  anger  against  his  teacher.  He 
sinned  there.  Christ  said:  "That  whoso- 
ever is   angry  with   his  brother   without  a 


116  EDWIN   AND   HIS   TEACHER. 

cause  shall  be  in  danger  of  the  judgment.' ' 
God  is  often  said  to  be  "slow  to  anger." 
Let  us  try  to  be  like  him.  "Anger  resteth 
in  the  bosom  of  fools,"  not  of  the  wise. 
"An  angry  man  stirreth  up  strife." 

2.  God  is  very  good  in  holding  us  back 
from  great  sins.  If  Edwin  had  killed  that 
boy,  how  great  a  sin  it  would  have  been! 
How  his  conscience  would  have  tormented 
him  for  life  !  He  never  would  have  got  over 
it.  God  is  good  to  us  all  in  the  way  of 
restraint.  We  should  think  of  this  and  be 
humbled.     Our  hearts  are  very  vile. 

3.  Edwin  sinned  in  sending  the  letter. 
He  had  no  right  to  make  his  old  teacher  pay 
postage  on  that  letter.  If  he  had  had  any 
right  feelings,  he  would  have  paid  the  post- 
age at  first.  Christ  says,  "He  that  is 
unjust  in  the  least  is  unjust  also  in  much." 
Every  one  knows  that  no  man  would  be 
willing  to  pay  money  for  letters,  if  he  knew 
that  they  had  no  name  to  them.  Again, 
writing  a  letter  at  one  place,  and  dating  it  at 
another,  was  writing  a  known  falsehood.  Is 
any  thing  likely  to  end  well,  which  begins 
with  an  untruth  ?     In  the  letter  he  said,  "I 


EDWIN    AND    HIS    TEACHER.  117 

am  your  friend. "  That  was  not  true,  and 
he  knew  it.  He  also  told  him  that  bad 
stories  were  told  of  him  in  a  place  where  he 
did  not  know  that  any  thing  was  said  of  him. 
Here  was  another  lie.  After  he  was  found 
out,  he  said  he  did  it  in  fun.  This  was  not 
true.  This  was  a  very  bad  affair  from  first 
to  last. 

4.  People  cannot  sin  and  pray  both. 
They  may  sin  and  keep  up  a  form  of  prayer. 
But  they  cannot  sin  with  the  heart  and  pray 
with  the  heart  too.  Edwin  found  it  so. 
Even  in  his  trouble  he  could  not  pray. 

5.  I  hope  all  who  read  this  story,  will 
now  settle  it  in  their  minds  that  they  will 
never  write  any  letter  without  putting  their 
own  name  to  it.  I  think  it  is  a  sin  to  do  so. 
It  may  wound  one  who  is  already  in  deep 
sorrow.  It  may  make  him  suspect  those 
who  are  not  guilty.  It  cuts  him  off  from  all 
fair  chance  to  defend  himself.  It  may  give 
him  much  trouble  for  no  good.  It  is  a  mean 
and  cowardly  thing.  If  there  is  any  attempt 
in  it  to  deceive,  it  is  a  great  sin.  Never 
write  an  anonymous  letter. 

6.  Edwin  did  right  in   paying  the  fifty 

11 


118  EDWIN   AND   HIS   TEACHER. 

cents.  It  was  due  to  others.  He  had  at 
times  a  strong  sense  of  honour.  When  he 
acted  it  out  he  did  right.  He  always  felt 
best  when  he  did  as  honour  required.  We 
all  ought  to  pay,  as  far  as  we  are  able,  every 
cent  that  any  body  loses  by  our  doing  wrong. 
"  Men  do  not  despise  a  thief,  if  he  steal  to 
satisfy  his  soul  when  he  is  hungry ;  but  if  he 
be  found,  he  shall  restore  seven-fold ;  he 
shall  give  all  the  substance  of  his  house." 
Prov.  vi.  30,  31.  As  soon  as  Zaccheus 
loved  Christ,  he  began  to  restore  money  to 
those  whom  he  had  cheated.  We  must  do 
the  same  as  far  as  we  can. 

7.  Unless  we  repent  and  obtain  pardon  by 
the  blood  of  Jesus,  all  our  sins  will  meet  us 
at  the  last  day,  just  as  Edwin's  letter  met 
him,  when  he  did  not  wish  to  see  it.  Edwin 
could  not  deny  his  guilt.  Neither  will  we  be 
able  to  deny  ours,  if  we  die  in  sin.  "Be 
sure  your  sin  will  find  you  out."  " Every 
mouth  will  be  stopped,  and  all  the  world  will 
become  guilty  before  God."  The  last  day 
will  be  a  great  day  indeed. 

8.  It  is  well  always  to  have  this  truth  be- 
fore our  minds:    "Thou,  God,  seest  me." 


ACORNS   MAKE    OAKS.  119 

It  would  save  us  from  many  a  sinful  act  and 
word.  I  knew  a  minister  once  who  had  these 
words  in  large  letters  hanging  over  his  man- 
tel. Whether  you  hang  them  up  on  a  card 
or  not,  try  to  keep  them  in  mind. 


ACORNS  MAKE  OAKS. 

Every  thing  has  a  nature.  Oaks  do  not 
grow  from  chestnuts.  They  spring  only  from 
acorns.  Neither  corn  nor  barley  ever  grow 
from  the  seed  of  wheat.  Grapes  never  grow 
on  thorns.  Thistles  never  bear  figs.  God, 
angels,  men,  children,  all  have  natures. 

But  this  is  not  all.  A  kitten  will  be  a  cat ; 
a  lamb  will  be  a  sheep ;  and  a  puppy  will  be 
a  dog,  if  they  each  live  long  enough.  This 
is  quite  plain.  John  Bunyan  has  written  an 
account  of  "the  life  and  death  of  Mr.  Bad- 
man.  "  And  he  says,  that  "from  a  child  he 
was  very  bad."  Bad  boys  are  not  apt  to 
make  good  men.  Good  boys  are  not  apt  to 
make  bad  men.  Boys  sometimes  seem  to  be 
good  for  a  while,  but  you  do  not  know  their 


120  ACORNS   MAKE    OAKS. 

hearts  and  deeds,  or  you  would  not  call  them 
good.  When  they  grow  up,  and  all  at  once 
seem  to  turn  out  badly,  you  may  be  sure  that 
is  not  the  first  time  they  have  been  in  great 
sin.  A  lady  in  Hartford,  Connecticut,  has 
written  much  pretty  poetry  and  prose  too. 
Her  name  is  Mrs.  Sigourney.  She  has  told 
the  world  about  "the  boy  that  became  a 
traitor. "  She  says:  "  There  are  few  things 
more  disgraceful  in  children,  than  to  be  cruel 
to  those  harmless  creatures,  which  are  not 
able  to  defend  themselves.  If  I  see  a  child 
pull  off  the  wings  of  an  insect,  or  throw  stones 
at  a  toad,  or  take  pains  to  set  his  foot  upon 
a  worm — I  am  sure  there  is  something  wrong 
about  him,  or  that  he  has  not  been  well 
instructed.  There  was  once  a  boy  that  loved 
to  give  pain  to  every  thing  that  came  in  his 
way,  over  which  he  could  get  any  power. 
He  would  take  the  eggs  from  the  mourning 
robin,  and  torture  the  unfledged  sparrow. 
Cats  and  dogs,  the  peaceable  cow,  and  the 
faithful  horse,  he  delighted  to  worry  and  dis- 
tress. I  do  not  like  to  tell  you  of  the  many 
cruel  things  that  he  did.  He  was  told  that 
such  deeds  were  wrong.     An  excellent  lady, 


ACORNS    MAKE    OAKS.  121 

with  whom  he  used  to  live,  used  to  warn  and 
reprove  him  for  his  evil  conduct.  But  he  did 
not  reform.  When  he  grew  up,  he  became  a 
seedier.  He  was  never  sorry  to  see  men 
wounded,  and  blood  running  upon  the  earth. 
He  became  so  wicked  as  to  lay  a  plan  to 
betray  his  country,  and  sell  it  into  the  hands 
of  the  enemy.  This  is  to  be  a  traitor.  But 
he  was  discovered  and  fled.  He  never 
dared  to  return  to  his  native  land,  but  lived 
despised,  and  died  miserably  in  a  foreign 
clime.  Such  was  the  end  of  the  cruel  boy, 
who  loved  to  give  pain  to  animals.  His  name 
was  Benedict  Arnold.  He  was  born  at  Nor- 
wich, in  Connecticut,  and  the  beautiful  city 
of  his  birth  is  ashamed  of  his  memory.'' 

Bad  boys  will  be  very  apt  to  make  bad 
men,  for  the  very  reason  that  acorns  make 
oaks.  That  is,  nature  will  show  itself,  and 
grow  stronger  and  stronger.  Even  the  grace 
of  God  in  the  heart  does  not  make  a  bad  tree 
bring  forth  good  fruit.  That  is  not  the  way 
that  grace  works.  Xo ;  it  makes  the  tree 
good,  and  then  the  fruit  is  good  also.  It 
puts  the  heart  right,  and  then  the  thoughts, 
and  words,  and  deeds  are  right  also.     This 


122  ACORNS   MAKE    OAKS. 

is  God's  way.  When  a  watch  does  not  keep 
good  time,  men  do  not  try  to  make  it  run  well 
by  putting  the  hands  back  or  forward.  They 
try  to  get  all  things  right  within.  Then  the 
hands  go  well  of  course. 

Perhaps  there  hardly  ever  was  a  worse 
man  than  the  Roman  emperor,  Domitian. 
He  delighted  in  seeing  others  suffer.  He 
was  one  of  the  most  cruel  foes  the  early 
Christians  had.  How  did  he  become  so  vile? 
By  killing  flies  with  a  bodkin  when  he  was 
young.  When  he  got  older,  flies  were  not 
big  enough  for  him.  He  wished  to  see  men, 
and  women,  and  children  suffer.  If  you  are 
a  cruel  boy,  you  will  probably  be  a  cruel 
man.  If  you  are  a  pouting  girl,  you  will  be 
very  apt  to  be  a  cross  old  woman.  Take  care 
what  you  do,  but  most  of  all,  take  heed  what 
you  are,  when  you  are  young. 


THE   END. 


"1fl 


